Greetings.
Although I know many of you, I don’t know all of you, so allow me to introduce myself. I’m Jackie Ogden and I have worked in the zoo and aquarium field for over 35 years — Zoo Atlanta, San Diego, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I worked in animal management, education, research, conservation and environmental sustainability, mostly in leadership roles. I served on the board of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, including as chair. I retired from Disney in 2016, from what was arguably the best job in the company — leading the Disney Resorts’ animals, science and environment team. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to do some consulting with Canopy (thanks, David Walsh!) and executive coaching.
Now I am fully retired, which means I have time to write. (You get to decide whether that’s a good thing.)
Over my career, I learned many leadership lessons from colleagues and bosses, as well as from non-human animals. But many of these lessons were based on mistakes I made along the way. David has granted me the opportunity to share some of these lessons with you all in a series of essays this year — all with the goal of sparing you from making my mistakes and helping all of us become better leaders.
Ideally, we are all focused on growing both as people and as leaders. Self-development is especially critical in our field, where we are seeking to change the world. To state the obvious, changing the world is not easy, and it has become clear to me that we will not be successful without exceptional leadership.
As a young leader, I led with my brain. I have always been a people pleaser, so some kindness snuck in, but logic ruled my world. In fact, when the San Diego Zoo first began using Myers-Briggs, I was used as an example of the “logical and rational” leader. At the time, I thought that was great. During my career, I was repeatedly coached against using my heart. I was told that considering people was neither necessary nor even desirable. That focusing on business was the answer. That good leadership was about being respected — even feared. That “nice guys finish last.” Oliver Emberton, an IT entrepreneur and artist, is frequently quoted as saying: “If you’re not pissing someone off, you probably aren’t doing anything important.” But I now believe this is wrong. Over time, I came to realize the limitations of this type of leadership, and my leadership style became more focused on people, on compassion, on heart. I now believe that leading with heart makes one a better and more successful leader. I know it is possible — I’ve seen it in action, and I’ve seen the upside that emerges when leaders allow their heart to show through.
I’m certainly not the first to talk about this: One of the silver linings of the pandemic is that our view of leadership has morphed. We see increasing writing on “empathetic leadership,” “heart-centered leadership,” and so on. (This Forbes article is a good example.) One’s character is finally becoming an acceptable concept in leadership, but that hasn’t always been the case. I remember serving on a selection committee for a Disney executive. One candidate led with his heart. Yet when I raised this as a positive, I was roundly dismissed — almost shamed — for suggesting the candidate’s character was relevant. Over time I received copious feedback that I needed to lead with a “business” mindset: my compassion for people was generally viewed as a negative.
To be clear, they weren’t entirely wrong. I’m not suggesting that leaders shouldn’t make the hard decisions. That we shouldn’t take risks and be courageous. Of course we should, and we must. What I am saying is that we can be more successful if we treat our human capital as thoughtfully as we treat our financial capital. One of my least favorite sentiments is, “This isn’t personal, it’s about business.” It should be about both. With help and inspiration from many of you along the way, I’ve seen first-hand how the best leaders artfully blend both logic and heart.
But what does this mean? How do we merge the two ideologies?
This style of leadership means creating an environment that rewards the positive treatment of others. We had a leader at Walt Disney World — Lee Cockerell — who was responsible for the overall operation there. Tiny little job. He came and spoke to us once about leadership, and he started by saying he was an environmentalist. Well, I was over the moon — this amazing leader who didn’t come from the conservation world was promoting the environment. My passion. Only to discover that he wasn’t speaking of *that* environment. He meant that leaders needed to create a caring environment, or culture, to help people thrive. I got it — he was right.
I credit many Disney leaders with helping me see the value of all this heart stuff. Disney has long used what they call the value chain to illustrate the importance of people — both leaders and front-line folks. Basically:
great leadership → great staff experience → great guest experience (our team included conservation engagement here) → great business results (we included conservation results).
Put simply, this states that happy people are more effective. Doesn’t seem like rocket science.
What helps people to be happy at work? In part, I believe it is knowing and seeing that their leaders care — not just about the business, but about them. I still have notes from Disney leaders who wrote me thoughtful notes during particularly stressful times. Leading with heart means being kind and showing compassion — not to be conflated with simply being positive. Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against positivity (I have been referred to as Sister Mary Sunshine — no kidding). But it’s not about being positive all the time; it’s not about sugar-coating. In fact, it’s about being “real.” About acknowledging that things can be tough, but that you’re in them together. That you don’t have all the answers. That you care. It is about unashamedly considering the impact of your decisions on the people who report to you.
Most of you have been around long enough to remember that 2008 was a rough year economically. When it became clear that we were going to be required to lay people off — which was new for our team — I summoned my courage and shared what I could with the entire team. I acknowledged that it sucked — that this was a rough period, was going to get rougher, and was going to involve tough decisions. That it was going to take a while, and there wouldn’t be much information along the way. But importantly, I encouraged them to continue to focus on our mission to save the world, and the incredibly important work they all did. And I encouraged them to take care of themselves, and each other.
I was right — it did suck. And it was painful and certainly had an impact on our culture. (It also caused me to think hard about the impact and value of layoffs, but that’s a story for another day…) But I’m convinced that approaching the situation with the people in mind helped. I had many employees say something to the effect of, “I know this will be incredibly hard, but thank you for caring, and for focusing us on our mission.” I truly felt the blending of heart and brain, and saw how that approach helped.
Many of you have read or listened to Brené Brown. If you haven’t, I encourage you to read one of her books, watch a TED talk, or listen to her podcast. She epitomizes heart-centered leadership. As she said: “The future of leadership? It’s about heart. It’s about empathy, compassion, and connection. True leadership will be defined by how deeply we understand and care for our teams. It’s about creating environments where people feel valued, heard, and inspired…because teams thrive when leaders lead with heart.” Yeah, like she said.
Of course, I must acknowledge that I am far from a perfect leader. There are times when I leaned too much toward the business side, and many where I leaned too much toward the people side (that “people pleaser” thing). But that is life. We are imperfect beings, but our challenge — our responsibility — is to grow from our mistakes.
I look forward to continuing this conversation over the course of the year. In the meantime, do some work. Explore. Do some thinking. Ask questions. Listen. Work to be the best you can be, and the best leader you can be. Maybe then, together, we can really change the world.
— Jackie Ogden
