Dirk Verburg

Our expectations of leaders and ideas about leadership have changed dramatically in the last couple of years.

Recently I was introduced to Sophia Town, Ph.D. , an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Gabelli School of Business of Fordham University, who is at the forefront of academic research in this area.

In the classroom, Professor Town’s curriculum is guided by the question: “How can we develop compassionate leaders in service of a flourishing world?”

SophiaTown leads Fordham’s Human Flourishing Project (FHFP), a mixed-methods, interdisciplinary research lab that explores behavioral, psychological, communicative, and spiritual development in business education. Related to this project, Dr. Town serves as a Research Affiliate and Advisory Board Member for the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University.

During our conversation, we discussed, amongst others, the following topics:

– Our changing expectations from leaders
– The blurring boundaries between our working lives and our private lives
– The importance of value alignment between organizations and employees
– Knowledge versus Wisdom
– Mindfulness
– The power of questions and self-reflection
– Preparing students for leadership positions
– Profit as a ‘happy coincidence’ (CSR)
– The importance of curiosity in the context of motivation

I really enjoyed our conversation, and if you are interested, you can listen to a podcast of our conversation on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (below), or watch it on YouTube.

No time to watch or listen to the entire interview yet? Below you will find a summary of the key points:

Dirk Verburg: Where does your interest in the topic of leadership stem from?
Sophia Town: My interest began as a child, observing how people in a martial arts dojo could captivate others through their skills, regardless of their day-to-day shyness. This evolved into a curiosity about why often less compassionate but charismatic individuals rise in public, while highly compassionate people might lack the communicative competence to make an impact. My focus is on developing human capacities for powerful change, particularly in business due to leaders’ significant influence.

Dirk Verburg: Have the expectations we have from leaders changed in recent years, and if so, how?
Sophia Town: Yes, significantly. Historically, leadership was akin to management (control, predicting, maintaining). Today, there’s a rapid shift where employees demand leaders embrace their whole selves and their employees’ whole selves at work. This includes providing psychological and physical safety. The focus has expanded from just the “bottom line” (profit) to centrally include employee well-being, environmental, and social sustainability – things that were once “icing on the cake” but are now “central.”

Dirk Verburg: What are the root causes for these changing expectations from work and leadership?
Sophia Town: It’s a complex, multi-faceted problem. While social pressures (like environment, race, gender) have always existed, the key change is the increased “porosity” or blurring of boundaries between the organization and public life, amplified by social media. People now bring their public consciousness into the workplace and vice-versa, with less compartmentalization of their personal and professional identities.

Dirk Verburg: How do organizations and leaders need to handle these changes, and what are the implications if they don’t adapt?
Sophia Town: There’s no simple script, as wise leadership is context-specific. Leaders need to develop a “paradox mindset” to skillfully navigate conflicting demands and contradictory forces. Practicing mindfulness and questioning assumptions can help. If leaders don’t adapt, they will face employees who are “quick to call them out,” high attrition rates (especially among younger generations seeking value alignment), disengaged staff, and a general “mess for everybody involved.” Leaders must move from “knowledge” to “wisdom” – knowing what to do when they don’t know what to do.

Dirk Verburg: How can leaders develop a paradox mindset and unify conflicting demands?
Sophia Town: This is a practice, not easy to develop quickly. Research shows mindfulness practices (like meditation) help people hold “generative tensions” productively. Engaging multiple senses (thinking, talking, feeling problems physically) and then regulating emotions before problem-solving can increase creativity. Crucially, leaders must question their assumptions about a problem, often best done privately through journaling, to expand perceived possibilities. Allowing for reflection time, rather than always operating under tight “deadlines,” also helps.

Dirk Verburg: How do you prepare students for future leadership positions given these evolving expectations?
Sophia Town: Modern students often have a robust social consciousness. At Fordham, they’ve redesigned their core leadership and management courses with a “humanistic lens,” teaching emotional intelligence, compassion as an active behavior, and how leadership impacts well-being “for its own sake.” They highlight successful businesses (like Greyston Bakery) that prioritize employee well-being, making profit a “happy consequence.”

Dirk Verburg: What advice do you have for experienced leaders regarding ongoing leadership development?
Sophia Town: Embrace lifelong learning. Recognize that current turbulent times are transformative, even if uncomfortable. Utilize diverse resources (podcasts, blogs, spiritual traditions) to increase overall “human wisdom,” which will then influence leadership. Reframe “how can I be a better leader” to “how can I be a more effective human.” Remember that people can always learn and change, regardless of age, due to brain plasticity.

Dirk Verburg: Why do you advocate for viewing “leadership as a verb, not a noun”?
Sophia Town: Over-focusing on “being a leader” as a title can narrowly tie behavior to profit. Instead, leadership is something you do – an action or a “verb.” It’s not an inherent personality trait; anyone can learn to be “more leaderly.” Most importantly, leadership emerges in our communication (verbal, non-verbal, text, meetings, memos). Viewing leadership as communication democratizes it, allowing even entry-level employees to enact leadership daily through their interactions, leading to notice and development.