Leading with Heart: How Leaders Can Thrive in 2025
Gretchen Reid
CEO, Integrated Growth | developing leaders, mobilizing teams, and transforming organizations across healthcare, wellness, outdoor recreation, travel & hospitality, and public services.
A Note from Our Founder
I recently interviewed a number of hospitality professionals as a way of gaining insight into the market forces that are impacting the travel and hospitality industry, as input for an article that was published in The Tycoon Magazine just last week.
What I learned during these interviews informs how we need to look at leadership, as well as the six skills that will be required to successfully carry us through 2025.
Today's political and economic forces are all very real. They are directly impacting organizations and anyone they in-turn collaborate with or support. In fact, just the other day, I had my own experience with this when a client was forced to pause their leadership development efforts indefinitely due to the uncertainty around government-funded grants and the potential restrictions their industry fears might be coming its way.
This doesn't just impact the direct organization or industry in which these cuts are directed, but others down the chain and, of course, beneficiaries of the services as well.
Whether you are in hospitality or any other industry, you are facing unprecedented change from external forces upon your business, your teams, and even yourself as a leader. To face those challenges, we’ll all need to lean in and set our teams up for success.
Read on for a special edition of our monthly newsletter, providing hope and tools to lead in 2025, with our featured article, “Leading with Heart”, co-written with Astrid McNellis of Moonstar Partners.
In your corner,
Gretchen Reid
This article originally appeared in The Tycoon Magazine on 2/20/25.
As a child, Danielle played Innkeeper, welcoming guests to her imaginary hotel on the hill. Today, she takes in the warm glow of her hotel's lobby and the lights reflecting off gleaming marble floors as she takes a deep breath.?
As the general manager of this boutique hotel, her childhood fantasies continue to fuel her, despite her weathering countless challenges over the years, such as vacation rentals redefining the hospitality landscape, staffing shortages, rapid technological changes, and so much more. Danielle knows that as she steps into 2025, things are only going to get more intense.?With the conflicting priorities of investors, employees, and guests, her continued success will demand more of her than ever before.
She knows that while many things are changing and pressures are mounting, the fundamentals of hospitality remain the same. Her hotel’s primary purpose is to meet guests’ fundamental needs for a comfortable night’s rest.?She has proven over the years that delighting her guests with an understanding of their personal preferences, treating them with heart, and seeing them as unique individuals, has built a unique loyalty in her customer base.?
To keep up with increasing pressures, Danielle realizes she must harness this heart connection and a higher level of emotional intelligence (EQ) all the more.
Client Spotlight: Hospitality Human Resources Association (HHRA)
We recently conducted a workshop for the Hospitality Human Resources Association (HHRA), “Leading with Heart, Coaching with PRIDE”, based on our research and utilizing our PRIDE Model of Team and Organizational Performance as a framework for coaching today’s leaders.
During it, one of the participants called out that AI will never be a replacement for human connection in coaching.
We couldn’t agree more.
“Gretchen’s focus on the importance of human connection in the workplace was incredibly relevant and resonated deeply. We especially appreciate how she incorporated interactive elements into her presentation, making the learning experience both dynamic and memorable. We walked away with practical takeaways that we can implement immediately. I highly recommend Gretchen and Integrated Growth for anyone looking to foster stronger connections within their organization.”? — Jenny Lammers, HHRA President
Contact us to schedule your “Leading with Heart, Coaching with PRIDE” workshop.
Tea Talk with Gretchen: Your Personality Under Pressure
Do you know what the optimal amount of stress is? Some might say none. But according to some studies on how our brains actually work, that’s not true.
If you are a leader in today’s world, you are experiencing some level of stress — from external factors to internal dynamics.
In Tea Talk with Gretchen: Your Personality Under Pressure | How Stress Manifests for Different Personality Types, Courtney Marchment and Gretchen Reid help us understand the process the brain goes through at different levels of stress, and how those levels affect how we make decisions both as people and as leaders. Courtney shares tools to help identify your own stress patterns and to actively redirect them into more helpful, nourishing ways of thinking. Referencing the powerful psychometric tool, Insights Discovery, she invites us to reflect on how facing our emotions straight on might empower us to operate as the best versions of ourselves — whether at home or the office.
Special Offer: 15% Off Insights Discovery
Insights Discovery is a powerful, practical model that helps individuals understand themselves better, leading to positive impacts in the workplace and beyond.
Based on four color energies, Insights Discovery helps individuals learn more about their preferred behaviors, the strengths they bring and the challenges they’re likely to face. It shows us how we prefer to act — or the space we’re most comfortable in — while giving us the awareness needed to draw on our less inclined behaviors to handle the demands of specific situations.
Key Outcomes:
Special Offer:
Book a workshop by April 1, 2025 (to be held any time in 2025) and get 15% off materials (for new Insights clients). Email Gretchen at [email protected] to claim this offer.
Special Offer: 25% Off Integrative Enneagram
Curious about the Enneagram? Wondering how it can be used to support your personal, professional, and team development?
The Integrative Enneagram is a powerful tool for revealing the underlying patterns that subconsciously drive and shape our personalities and how those personality traits imprint upon our leadership style. Bringing these motivating forces into consciousness allows us to transcend our habitual responses, cultivating the development of more fulfilling, healthier behaviors incorporating best practices from neuroscience, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence.
Special Offer:
Receive 25% off the Enneagram Professional Report and a 75-minute debrief if booked by April 1, 2025.
($565; savings of $185)
OR
Receive 25% off the Enneagram Professional Report & a 1:1 Development Coaching Package including the 75-minute debrief PLUS 2 coaching sessions to dig deeper and establish a personalized development plan.
($1300; savings of $450)
Email Gretchen at [email protected] to for more details.?
Featured Resources and Articles from the Integrated Growth Archives
RESOURCES:
Navigating and Thriving Through Change: How to lead through change when external forces are outside your control.
The SCARF Model: Explanation of what gets threatened during change and how to reduce threat and increase personal power.
The Change Curve: A powerful tool to understand the stages of personal transition to help you predict how people will respond to change, so that you can help them through times of transition.
Best Practices For Communicating Change: The 4 Ps can be instrumental in helping your team better understand what to expect and what is needed from them.
ARTICLES:
Stay tuned for next month’s newsletter as we continue our series on Transforming the ELT, focusing on the ‘D’ (Dynamics) of the PRIDE Model of Team and Organizational Performance.
Connect With Us
Know someone who might benefit from this content? We’d love for you to share it with them!
Integrated Growth has been developing leaders, mobilizing teams, and transforming organizations since 1998. Founded by Gretchen Reid, their team of highly skilled consultants and executive coaches are known for building award winning leadership development programs, facilitating strategic planning and team development initiatives, and providing executive coaching to help you achieve your greatest mission. We invite you to schedule a free consultation or visit www.integratedgrowth.com for more information.
Transforming Leaders into Influencers with proven Presence 26 Toolkit. Boost your career - achieve recognition - build your confidence - exceed your business goals! |Author-OPRAH guest-Executive Coach for Leaders
1 周Gretchen Reid wow what an informative and engaging interview with a bevy of practical insights and tips!