#152 - Mark Crowley: Lead From The Heart, Build Belonging, And Boost Performance

Episode notes

Mark Crowley is a longtime financial services leader who led consistently top-performing teams over a 25-year career. He’s the author of Lead From the Heart and the newly released The Power of Employee Well-being, a frequent contributor to Fast Company , and host of the Lead From the Heart podcast. In 2013, Mark was the first to publicize Gallup’s finding that only 30% of U.S. employees were engaged - helping ignite a decade-long debate about what truly drives performance. In this conversation, we explore why feelings and emotions - not dashboards - drive behavior, how the heart - brain connection shapes decisions at work, and why belonging outperforms “boss quality” as a predictor of retention. Mark connects lived leadership to research - from Oxford’s wellbeing - productivity link to HeartMath’s work on coherence - and shows how caring (not coddling) creates the conditions for sustained results. Whether you lead a business unit, a project team, or a transformation office, this episode will reframe how you raise performance by raising wellbeing - with specific, near-term moves any leader can make this week.

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