The deepest lessons in leadership may come from people who never asked to be called leaders. Through stories of mothers whose sacrifice changed the lives of their children, Dr. Mark explores what empathy looks like when it becomes action: standing by someone, creating possibility from scarcity, offering forgiveness, and choosing human connection over fear. From a Department of Energy leader transformed after publicly honoring his mother, to a South African mother working extra houses so her son could travel to Florence, to a museum guard whose simple invitation brought strangers together, these stories reveal leadership as an expression of love, connection, empathy, and forgiveness.

The Choreography Of A Connection:

• The Leadership Story We Carry – A reluctant leader discovers that acknowledging the sacrifice behind his own life can open the door to an entirely different way of leading.
• From Scarcity to Abundance – Public recognition and human connection help one executive confront the fear that had quietly shaped his decisions and relationships.
• The Unsung Sacrifice of Mothers – Stories across cultures reveal how devotion expressed without titles or recognition can alter the trajectory of another person's life.
• Forgiveness as Leadership – Moving forward becomes possible when leaders are willing to forgive themselves, seek forgiveness from others, and release the identities built around past mistakes.
• Love as a Daily Practice – Empathy becomes tangible through simple questions, acknowledgment, kindness, and the willingness to understand what another person genuinely needs.

About the Host:

Dr. Mark Rittenberg is a Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, specializing in leadership communication and interpersonal dynamics. He is known for helping individuals and organizations develop authentic leadership presence through human connection and dialogue.

With over three decades of global experience, he has worked with Fortune 100 companies, government institutions, and international organizations. He is also the founder of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, where he trains leaders and executive coaches from around the world.

At the heart of his work is a simple but powerful belief: leadership is rooted in love, expressed through presence, dialogue, and the courage to remain in human connection.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-rittenberg-bb90214/

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Dr. Mark Rittenberg: I was doing some reading the other day, getting ready for my leadership communications class at UC Berkeley, and I came across a wonderful essay from one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love. If you haven't read it, you got to read it. It's fantastic, and she said, "What we expect from our mothers is merely that they not be human. Mothers are meant to be some combination of Mother Mary, Mother Teresa, Superwoman, and Gaia. It's a merciless standard of perfection. Can we take a break today from judging the mothers and show them mercy

instead. This doesn't mean that your pain is not real. It just means that maybe her pain was real too. Mercy on you. Mercy on everyone. And mercy on our mothers. I'm Dr. Mark Rittenberg. Welcome to the Ballet of Empathy, a Leadership Is Love podcast. Here we explore the power of human connection, the heartbreak of human connection, and the responsibility we carry to repair, to forgive, and to lead in service of something larger than ourselves. If you're willing to step out of your comfort zone, into the stretch zone, and possibly into the danger zone, and practice the power of dialog, this

space is built for you. Welcome back to the Ballet of Empathy, a leadership is love podcast. I'm Dr. Mark Rittenberg, and before we dive into today's conversation, I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to all of you, all of you listening all over the world. We recently looked at our listener map, and I was humbled to see that our global community now spans 41 countries. What that means is that you might be tuning in the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore. Maybe listening in Germany, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Zambia, anywhere in the world, and thank you, thank

you, thank you for choosing to listen, for choosing the heart over transaction, and for stepping into this space with us. Today we're exploring a theme that touches the very core of human connection, the unsung hero, the unsung sacrifices, and the universal force of the mother. And joining me in the studio today, as always, is my favorite executive producer, Amy Lynn Durham. Hi, Amy. Hi.

Amy Lynn Durham: I got the chills when you were talking about the 41 countries. This is so amazing. Thank you for everyone tuning in and listening. And today we're going to focus on the mother. And Mark, I would love for you to take us to South Miami Beach.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: As all of you know, I'm executive coach. Amy is too, and we're among 1,800 people, all certified by the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. So we have a worldwide coaching network. It's wonderful. I was doing a coaching session with a very high-level Department of Energy gentleman, and I liked him a lot, and he liked me, but he wasn't doing his homework, so I decided that today's the day we're going to terminate the relationship. And so I said, you know, this is our last session. He says, no, why? I really like this. I said, you may like it, but you're getting

nowhere. I don't see any progress. You're not doing the readings. You're not writing what I need. You're not doing the homework of reaching out to other people to get feedback for yourself, so I think it's just better that we just terminate our coaching relationship. We can still be friends. He said, "I really don't want to do that. I said, "Well, what do you want to do to change the movie? He said, "Well, how about if I turn over a new leaf. I said, "Well, we've tried that before. He said, "What would prove to you that I really am different, that I really want to make something happen that

I haven't so far in the 18 months that we've been together? I thought for a moment, and I said, "Okay, we just created a leadership academy for emerging leaders, young leaders who show unbelievable potential as new leaders, new thoughts, coaches for their people. Leaders who, in fact, care greatly about building trust. Leaders who believe that teamwork is the greatest event of a team, and leaders who believe that values such as gratitude and family will actually create a strong work group with results that will go right off the charts, but embracing the human values of family and

gratitude. So I said, so why don't you give the keynote welcome when we all meet in about three weeks, in a beautiful, beautiful hotel in New Mexico, and it'll be lovely food, and you'll speak for about 510, minutes. He said, "Well, I don't know what I would say. I said, "Well, just tell one of your leadership stories. How did you become the leader you became? What is the story? What's the powerful event that's made you the man who you are? He said, "Well, I'm really sorry. I don't have that kind of story. I said, "Well, that's what I meant. We're done. If you don't have a leadership

story, there's nothing I can do. Okay, okay, maybe I can find one. I said, "Okay, Jack, but do me a favor. Do not get up there and say Mark decided that I would tell a story tonight. I want you to model authentic leadership, a leader who cares, a leader who cares about his people, a heart-based leader, full of empathy and compassion. He said, "Well, I'll try my best. So that we get closer to the evening, and I decided I'm not going to rehearse. I'm going to just take a chance on Jack, and we get to the beautiful restaurant. 450 people present. Beautiful food, New Mexico desert. It doesn't

get any better. It's time for the keynote, and he walks out on stage. And exactly as I thought, ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be with you tonight. My name is Jack Snyder, and I am going to tell you one of my leadership stories because my coach, Mark Rittenberg told me to. I said, "Jack, that's not what's going on. He said, "Okay, well, I'm feeling pretty nervous, so I wasn't sure what to say. So I apologize. I'd like to tell you who I am, and I'd like to do it through a story. He got very quiet. A long pause, for about 30 seconds, and he began to speak. And he said, "My father died

when I was six. My mother, after her day job, as a secretary, had to go out to the wealthy homes in South Miami Beach and clean the homes of the wealthy on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors, doing dishes, vacuuming. She only got home at 11 o'clock at night, often, and had to be at work at seven in the morning, with a half an hour drive. My mother will be 96 next week. She remains my most beloved hero.

And then something happened that I had never seen, because keep in mind, we're in an audience of DOE engineers, scientists, very technical people. They rose to their feet in a standing ovation that went on for 12 minutes, and I looked at the audience And some of them were hugging each other. Others were high fiving, and everybody moving to the stage, moving to the stage like an absolute miracle, and wanting to touch this guy, to hug him, to thank him for three lines as acknowledgment of his mother, and the end of the story is that I passed him a note that night and said, "Let's do our normal

lunch on Tuesday. It was Monday. I'll see you tomorrow, 1230 in the cafeteria, and he's ex-military, so he's like on time or early, and I'm there at 1230. It's 1235, 1240, 1245, 1250. Finally, at 1o'clock, in comes Jack, apologetic. Oh, Mark, I'm so sorry. I apologized for being late. I said, "Yeah, why were you late? You're never late. You're about the clock. He said, "Well, if I'm going to be honest, I was signing purchase orders. I said, "For what? He said, "I haven't wanted to spend a penny because of my own background, we didn't have money for food. Often we didn't have money for

rent. My mother would beg the landlord to come back. But last night my life changed when I felt not only the love but the respect of the room and people coming up to me, telling me that they loved me and they cared about me, and I decided I'd been living the wrong kind of life. I'd been a leader with a scarcity mentality. I decided let's have an abundance mentality, so God knows how many hundreds of 1000s of dollars I signed, but we are going to have a new kind of laboratory now. We are going to be different, and I can't thank you enough for pushing me over the edge of last night, because not

only was I able to honor my mother, which I'll do next week when I see her in Kansas City, but I changed. I let go of some baggage that I've been carrying for a long time. It was such a stunning session, Amy. It was where somebody really had transformed, and he could barely believe it, but he knew it had happened. And we'd done some studies earlier about his leadership with the laboratory, and I think there was a vote of kind of 61% no confidence, paralysis, and when we did the new study, 97% confidence in their leader, confidence in the fact that they knew where they were going, as an

institution, as a partner of the Department of Energy, so it's one of my proudest accomplishments.

Amy Lynn Durham: If there's one takeaway or one lesson you want people to have from that story, what

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: is it? Wow! One tough love often gets results. I was at the end of a coaching relationship. I was willing to walk away, and my client bade me not to walk away. So I said one more chance, but I did it through tough love. I didn't do it through being, you know, nice and cozy. And I said, "You're a very, very talented man, but for some reason, you don't want it to see your gifts and talents, and I can't do anything about that. But the other thing was the more ancient lesson, the ancestral lesson, the power of the mother. The mother does not desert her children. The mother

does not walk away. I remember my daughter told me a story after she did a huge, huge nature program when she was at the University of California in Santa Cruz, and she called me in floods of tears. And I said, "What is wrong? She said, "Nothing's wrong, Daddy. It's just I just watched a mother hummingbird for four hours. Get food for her babies. It took her four hours to get three worms, and I was in honor of this beautiful mother who did not walk away, or did not fly away, or did not forsake her babies. So this is very much the story that the power of the mother, and we see this in animals

all over the world. When you go to a game reserve in South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, wherever. You'll find animal sanctuaries with baby animals that need to be protected till they're a certain age, because the mother has been either killed or or lost in the jungle, and the baby cannot survive without the mother.

Amy Lynn Durham: Since you took us across the globe to South Africa, tell us about Morris.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Oh my God! His

Amy Lynn Durham: mother.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Well, this was another wonderful story. Of, I guess my whole life is just one coincidence after another. I don't know, but I was working on the HIV project when the South African government was not coming up with the funding for HIV prevention, the Elton John Foundation came to visit us, which is all about AIDS prevention. And there were these four guys I'd been working with. Pro bono, just they had beautiful voices, and so we just were working on some of their original songs. And I thought it might be nice to greet the Elton John Foundation with these beautiful Zulu songs

of four male voices singing a cappella. And so we greeted the Elton John Foundation, and the woman from the foundation named Annie said, "Well, you know, I'm actually in charge of Florence Fashion Week. I'm a designer, and I want these four young men to open Florence Fashion week, I said. Really, she said, we'll take care of all their expenses, all the airfares, all the accommodation, all the food. I said, you do realize they've never been out of the township, they've never been away from Orange Farm. She said, I know that's why they're so beautiful, that's why they're so fresh. So, with

two great friends, the two best friends in South Africa, Janice Honeyman, Liza Key, filmmaker, and also Janice South Africa's number one theater director, we became mom and dad to these five boys, who were going to now be in Italy to open up Florence Fashion Week, and we were asked to come to each of their houses to explain to the parents what would be going on, and so we're in a township called Orange Farm. Orange Farm is analogous to picture about 1010 houses made of aluminum with no heating, no bathroom, no anything. Four walls, no electricity. So we went around 2o'clock in the afternoon.

We walk into this house, has a dirt floor, but the dirt had been so beautifully raked. If you'd wanted to, you could have eaten off the floor. And there's Morris, six foot four, sitting next to his mom, smiling-not a word of English, smiling-and she had somehow made biscuits for us, and she passed around the biscuits with a huge smile, with such pride. So we're talking to them about the trip to Florence, and the question comes up to Morris because we were doing an interview for the South African newspaper, the Sunday Times, in Johannesburg, said, "Morris, who's your hero? Who's your role

model? He said, "Well, that's the easiest of all your questions. It's her. It's my mom. She's smiling, ear to ear. I said, "Why is it your mom? He said, my mom. She works very hard. She works about 50 hours a week. But when she heard about the Florence trip, she took on extra houses, and she's now cleaning another eight houses a week because she wanted me to be able to go on the trip, and wanted me to have new clothes, and I said, "Mom, you don't have to do this. She said, "I want to do it. You're my pride and joy. You're all I have. You're all I have. So that was the story there, And Morris

went from being a cleaner in a factory to being a very successful sales manager now in Johannesburg, but that happened because his mother loved him so much, and she was. To sacrifice her own comfort, so Morris could have a better life than she did.

Amy Lynn Durham: Where do you think this story fits in the leadership is love framework of the power of human connection, the heartbreak of human connection, and the power of forgiveness.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: The more story is in the power of human connection. Here we are, suddenly on a dirt road, and we're suddenly in a kind of house that looks more like a cave than a house. And but it was So comfortable, with really comfortable chairs, and we felt so welcomed by the plate of biscuits, and she made us tea. The Jack Stonger story-that's in the power of forgiveness, Because the community forgave him for scarcity mentality, but it was predicated by him forgiving himself. Him forgiving himself. He said to me, "Look, you know, I grew up. We weren't quite sure if there'd be a

meal on Sunday. We never knew how things were going to be, and I grew up so afraid of risk and couldn't take any chances. Yet I was in the industry where you need to take chances, and I held the people back, and I understand that now. I'm not going to do that again, and I have forgiven myself, and I'm going to be asking forgiveness for the 7000 people who work in this laboratory.

Amy Lynn Durham: We've covered a couple of stories about the unsung hero, the unsung sacrifices of mothers. Let's go to DC in the museum.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Yeah, thank you so much, Amy. I love this story because I love my grandson, as many of us on this broadcast will probably realize that we probably ended up being better grandparents than parents. That the parents were trial run made a lot of mistakes, but as grandparents we made very few mistakes. It's unequivocal love with a grandchild. They love you no matter what. If you're in a hotel, they want to stay with you in the room. They want to eat breakfast with you. They love you unequivocally. So my grandson, like his dad, one of the things that my son did was he

had a desire to memorize the presidents, and so by age seven, he knew all the presidents. In fact, in some cases, a line of history to remind us of who they were. Of, I think at one point, he was naming the presidents, and he got to John Quincy Adams, and he said, and died after six months in office. I mean, just had so many different things that he'd memorized about the president. Well, my grandson Romy did the same thing. He memorized all the presidents, and I said to him, "If you memorize the presidents and something about each president, he calls me Papa. I said, "Papa's going to

take you on a train from Chicago to Washington D.C. and we're going to visit the White House and the Capitol and everything. We have a wonderful time. Within 48 hours, he knew all the presidents, and so we plan this trip from Chicago to Union Station, Washington. And he's a very friendly little boy, very caring, very kind. So we get to D.C. about 1o'clock in the afternoon, and we decide we're going to go to the National Portrait Gallery. And I mean, he was kind of like a docent, because the moment he got into the gallery, he was already reciting. You know, the first president was George

Washington, and he fought the battle in white. Unbelievable! And people started to follow him. I mean, he's seven, and he's speaking about all these presidents. Anyway, he goes upstairs with my son, with with his dad, looking at sports. Figures and I'm meandering downstairs in different nooks and crannies. I mean, I love the National Portrait Gallery; it's a magical place. And suddenly, I find myself in front of the portrait of Barack Obama, covered in Hawaiian flowers. I was so struck by it, and I said to the guard, "You know, I feel like I'm in a shrine. I feel like I'm in a shrine. She

says, "Maybe you are my friend. Shall we pray? I said, "What? She said, "Well, shall we pray? I'm a mother of five, and whenever we have a feeling of grace, we come together and pray. Could be at home, it could be in a parking lot, could be in in the car, praying for safe journey, praying for safe passage. Would you like to pray? And I said yes, I would, and so suddenly I am holding her hand, and then she grabs these two other people, and suddenly there are nine of us in a circle in front of the portrait of Barack Obama, who I absolutely to this day I have such reverence and love for this

man. And she recites the Lord's Prayer, and we join her, and then she starts to sing in the most beautiful voice. Swing low, sweet chariot. Coming for to carry me home. Swing low, sweet chariot. Coming for to carry me home, and this group of strangers. We're holding hands now. We have our arms around each other, and we're swaying back and forth. And it becomes very emotional that everybody in that prayer circle loved our first black president. There we are with him in front of the portrait, with the guard who's now no longer a guard. She's part of the community, and we ended the service 20

minutes later, and everybody's hugging everybody. Strangers, the power of human connection, and it all came from. Her name was Florence. It all came from Florence saying, "I've never had a lot of money, but I raised my kids through prayer. And one's going to be a doctor, and one's going to be a lawyer, and one's going to be a chemist. And they've told their old mother, "Don't worry, mommy, we'll look after you. And I know they will.

I know they will, 'cause that's the way we were raised. Lift each other up. Lift each other up. Be with each other. It's just powerful moment. And so, that was my first day in Washington, with my grandson's visit to the National Portrait Gallery, and now he's going to be 13 on october 10, and he's going to have a bar mitzvah in Chicago, and I'm going to tell this story that I just told you to the community of who he is and how he was a catalyst for this wonderful thing that happened with Florence and the Washington visitors.

Amy Lynn Durham: That's an amazing story. I

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: can't believe it happened. I mean, I can't believe we're suddenly singing, singing in the National Portrait Gallery.

Amy Lynn Durham: Strangers joining hands because an everyday mother stepped into spiritual leadership in a public hall. It was so

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: clear to me that it was her motherly role, that she was the mother of the group. She was our mother in that moment, and giving us such hope, filling our hearts with hope and love, and we walked out of there on cloud nine. It's a government building, but we walked out of there on cloud nine because she intervened with her goodness of the mother,

Amy Lynn Durham: power of human connection.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Totally,

Amy Lynn Durham: these stories are amazing. Take us to Fremont.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: So let's cross the ocean again to the Silicon Valley, the hardcore Silicon Valley. You know, with buildings made of steel and guards and badges and all this. And I'm working on another culture change project, putting all the organizations through my work. And this man emerges, and he says, "This work is changing my life? I said, "Really, what's going on? He said, "Well, I've never told a story. I've never learned to communicate. I'm from a working class background. My father died when I was six, which is very much like the DOE story. And my father was from North Dakota,

and married to a Japanese mother, who had about 15 to 20 words of English. She never learned the language, so now she's left with a son, eight years old, No pension, and no way to earn a living. She never worked in America, so the only job she could get was a job in the GM factory, putting hoses together for the cars. Never complained, but that was the only job she could get, paid very little. And this gentleman told me, let's call him David. He told me he said, "I ate more sukiyaki for three years than you can imagine, 'cause that's what we could afford. And she was an incredible cook, and

she'd always make it a little differently each night. But that was all that we could afford. And she managed to save enough money to send me to the school of engineering at UC Berkeley, and I was able to finish the four-year degree in three years to save Mom some real money. Came back to the valley. Mom moved in with us, so she could feel safe. She was getting on in years, and I learned to be a role model for others that if my mother, with her 20 words of English, could create a success story, which she did, out of me, that I need to do all that I can to make that come true. So, I said,

"What's your takeaway from doing this Berkeley work? Said, "Very simple. Every other Friday, I have an open office with snacks and ice cream and all kinds of things, music playing, and people come here to fraternize for food for all kinds of reasons, but I'm sitting there for 20 minutes with a notebook, a blue notebook, and the question I'm asking them is, "What do I need to do? What do I need to do, as your leader, that would make you want to stay? That would make you not go to another company, not leave your job. What do I need to do, for you, developmental work, whatever it turns out to

be, trust-building work, storytelling work? What do I need to do that would make you decide to stay and build on what we're doing together, versus go take a job someplace else?

Amy Lynn Durham: One thing that strikes me from all of these stories of the unsung sacrifices and the universal force of the mother is that none of these mothers asked for titles or accolades. What do you think the core lesson is for all leaders who want to practice deeper empathy from these stories,

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: as a daily practice, you have to connect to your people. Check in. How's it going? What do you need? How can I help you? Acknowledge and appreciate their best efforts, and if we're coming into a difficult period, say we really want to help you hold all that together. What do you need from the collective? They can really help you be successful. We're taking away from the mother stories. The power of compassion, the power of empathy. We're taking the power of love. That love is the only medicine that can overcome all these things, but the main power that one needs in

corporate life, in private life, it's the power of forgiveness. Can you forgive the past? So maybe this is how they were in the past. And can you forgive yourself? So we can actually move forward into a bright, bright future, because seen in action, the power of forgiveness take place between two people, four people, five people. I think it's probably, although I can't predict when it's going to happen. It's probably my favorite interface when I see people absolutely apologize and say this will not happen again, and particularly when we see, for the most part, that it will not happen again

because they said that I'm going to trade in my power and my cynicism for goodness, kindness, and human connection.

Amy Lynn Durham: Before we wrap up our conversation today about the mother, you have an exciting session coming up next month that we're planning. You and your longtime colleague Tilly O'Neill are going to sit down in conversation together. Can you give all of the listeners a little preview of what they can anticipate?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. First of all, I met her when she was 41, and she's now 82. So that's how long we've known each other. Tilly O'Neill, one of the first black educators in AT&T, based in Pleasanton, California, and her style of teaching was such that it was somewhere between experiential, theoretical, and spirituality that you call her up, and her voicemail would always say, "Remember, treat yourself with loving kindness. Treat yourself with loving kindness. And people were lined up in the 80s to take Tilly's class, Leadership for the Future, based on Stephen

Covey's Seven Habits, so she and I met, and it was love at first sight. And she said, "Your work belongs in AT and T. And she made a commitment in my workshop that we're going to find the way, we're going to find the path. We went to Hawaii a few times, and my work became prominent in AT and T, working with hundreds, even 1000s of people. And the reason that that she liked what I was doing was she said, "We need to be kind to each other, and we need to lift each other up. So anything that's going to train people around the generosity of spirit, I want to be associated with. She retired, and

she did volunteer work in the church. And I don't want to spoil the episode, but I'll just say this: due to a series of circumstances, she created with her own pension money the most remarkable women's recovery center that the state of Georgia has ever seen, and I would say, in her women's recovery program called Every Woman Works, a minimum of 7000 lives were saved. 7000 lives were changed, and the love that she had in the room. I would go down and teach, or other friends would go down and teach, and she would always start off the conversation with great humor. She'd say, "My sweetheart,

you now have the great privilege of buying your air ticket, paying for it yourself. You can stay in my home." And we'll go to the grocery store, and we'll cook together. There is no money, but there's a lot of love here, and we'll have a great time, and we'll change the women's lives. So I've been down there about 100 times. So it's an amazing story of a women's recovery program, an amazing story of love and kindness, and I'm so looking forward to the broadcast.

Amy Lynn Durham: We can't wait a special bonus episode in conversation with Tilly O'Neill following this episode on the mother, perfectly timed energetically, Of course, Mark. Any final closing thoughts to the listeners today?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: No, just you know, I think again I've spoken about this many times, and Nelson Mandela continues to be a source of inspiration for me. And I, I've spoken the words before, but I feel I want to just end with these once again. Which, what he said just before he passed was, he said, "What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived, but it is what difference we've made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we led. It's what difference we made to others that would determine the significance of the life we led, and there was a

little postscript by him at the end of that to say, "Go do something wonderful for someone today. Don't delay. And that's my request of the listeners: act of kindness, make a phone call to someone you haven't spoken to in a long time, apologize for something that you feel was misunderstood, and take a chance that there's going to be forgiveness. Maybe somebody needs a little gift to lift them up to know that you care about them. Maybe the kids need you to do their homework with them, so they have a bit of a support system. Whatever that is, I'd like to really take the lesson from the mother. We

need to draw from the lessons of the mother and to help each other out in ways that will make our lives better and fill our homes with more joy.