What happens when love is treated as too soft, too personal, or too uncomfortable for leadership? This shared recording comes from Dr. Mark Rittenberg’s interview with Amy Lynn Durham on the Create Magic at Work podcast. Together, they explore what ghosting, cancellation, and disconnection reveal about the way people avoid conflict, vulnerability, and responsibility in the workplace. Through stories of dialogue, forgiveness, coaching, and human transformation, Dr. Mark makes the case that love belongs in leadership not as sentiment, but as presence, honesty, empathy, and the willingness to stay in relationship when it would be easier to disappear. It leaves us with a deeper question: Can leadership truly serve people if it does not make room for their humanity?

The Choreography Of A Connection:

1. Leadership as an Expression of Love – Love becomes practical when leaders build trust, act fairly, remain present, and treat people with empathy, honesty, and humanity.
2. The Hidden Harm of Ghosting – Avoiding an uncomfortable conversation may feel convenient, but the silence can leave another person questioning their worth, choices, and relationships.
3. Dialogue in the Danger Zone – Staying in difficult conversations creates space for understanding without requiring either person to surrender their identity or beliefs.
4. Forgiveness as a New Beginning – Forgiveness allows people and organizations to move beyond imperfection, see one another differently, and remain open to transformation.
5. Coaching as an Act of Service – Deep listening gives leaders a rare place to speak honestly, reconnect with themselves, and become more present for the people they serve.

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: The best version of themselves. See, that's a tagline: best version of themselves. But what are you really doing in coaching to help that individual truly become the best version of themselves? And when you go deep with their agreement, obviously, you're able to actually help the individual transform to become somebody within the organization that people look up to, and is truly in the act of service.

I'm Dr. Mark Frittenberg. 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.

Amy Lynn Durham: Hi, everyone. Amy Lynn Durham here, the executive producer for Magic Thread Media. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Ballet of Empathy with Dr. Mark Rittenberg. If you've been following Dr. Rittenberg on LinkedIn recently, you'll see that he's had an incredibly action-packed month of July, traveling internationally and bringing his work to life around the globe. He's been in South Africa, co-leading a fantastic workshop in Johannesburg with his wife Ingrid Gavshon, called "Telling the compelling story, the art of presentation through storytelling. They're helping executives and leaders transform their ideas into stories that connect, move people, and build true executive presence. As Dr. Rittenberg always says, at its core, leadership is about human connection. People just want to be seen, heard, and invited into something meaningful. So while Mark is on the ground doing that incredible work, we wanted to share a very special recording with his

community today. This is a classic crossover episode from my podcast, Create Magic at Work, where Mark and I sat down to explore why leadership is love, the true power of human connection, and how to choose heart over the transactional life. It's a deeply inspiring conversation, and we are so excited to drop this conversation into your ballet of empathy today. I'm really excited. Today is a treat because I've got a cool guest for you, Dr. Mark Rittenberg, and and I'm excited to share him with the Create Magic at Work community, and we have some thought-provoking things to talk about today that will hopefully get you thinking and inspire you. So, before we get into it, let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Rittenberg. For over 30 years, Dr. Mark Rittenberg has helped organizations create communities of excellence among their people and empowered individuals to become true leaders with the ability to actualize a vision all through the power of communication. Dr. Rittenberg's experience

extends around the globe, across cultures and across industries. Dr. Rittenberg is a distinguished teaching fellow and senior lecturer at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, where he heads the Leadership Communications Program for the Evening Weekend MBA and Executive MBA Core Programs. He was awarded the Earl F. Cheat. Am I saying that right? Cheat Award. Chiet. Chite. Sorry. Thank you. Chite Award for excellence in teaching. I'm I come from hardcore corporate Dr. Rittenberg, so I don't know a lot of the education stuff. His executive coaching practice includes clients from major consulting firms, Fortune 100 companies, Sandian National Laboratory. I mean, the list goes on and on. McKinsey and Company, AT&T. He founded the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute in 2009 in partnership with the University of California Berkeley Executive Coaching Education, and has trained more than 1000 certified executive coaches and run 41 executive coaching institutes, of which I was

a part in 2019. I attended their program, and actually, Mark, you were my play director when we had to get out of our shell as stuffy executives coming out of the corporate space, and we had to act, and that felt way more scary to me than ever presenting a quarterly business review in front of a scene. Yeah,

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: a really a really great actress. And what what was the scene that we worked on?

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, it was Little Foxes. Little Foxes. Yes, and I played the daughter of Betty Davis. Yeah, you played

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Alexandra. No, I remember it was very, very memorable.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, and now here I am, five and a half years later, running an executive coaching firm, inspired by the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, and not afraid to story tell and connect with others. So, Mark, thank you so much for being here, and and welcome to Create Magic at Work.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: I'm so pleased, Amy. This is such a great opportunity. I feel very honored, and I'm so glad to be part of your broadcast.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, thanks. Thanks for being here. One of the things that you and I were kind of talking about offline, and that we talk a lot about. First off, I see this on LinkedIn all the time. It's a thread that's run throughout the Create Magic at Work podcast. A lot of people come on the show and talk about leading with love, and you have a book soon to be out titled "Leadership Is Love, and I know you personally, so I know how deeply that runs for you. And I want to hear why love in leadership. I can tell you, I've been in some spaces at the in the corporate space and didn't feel like love. So tell us a little bit about what that. What do you mean by that?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: No, it's beautiful. I can't take credit for it. I have to give credit to my predecessor, the late Bill Schoenenheim, who was the professor of leadership communications, and I literally got a call from our dean, Rich Lyons, who's now the chancellor of UC Berkeley, and said, "I need help. I need a favor. Our beloved professor passed away last night in Madagascar, and the class is core. It's required. It's part of the MBA program, and we need to get going on Tuesday. And today's Wednesday, so whatever we need to do, parachute you in helicopter. Will you help me out? And I'd known Rich a long time. I said absolutely. And what I learned very soon from his group of teaching assistants, which at Berkeley we call GSIs, graduate student instructors, was that Bill very different than me, very structured, highly structured speech and debate coach, wonderful instructor. He would always end his classes saying to the student community, "And don't forget, leadership is

love. Leadership is love, and he would often walk students home, and they would have conversations about this and why the leader is the person that actually lives the value of love with their teams, and it's all connected to building trust, being fair, being empathetic, honest, bringing in a lot of humanity was a huge, huge human being. Cared deeply about empathy, cared deeply about how we treated people. And Bill's also responsible for the Berkeley MBA program pedagogy that says the mind and the heart of the leader, the mind and the heart of the leader. So the mind, brilliant analytics, brilliant venture capital, economics, all that. But the other side of it, which Rich Lyons talks about to this day, are you a human being? Are you empathetic? Are you coaching your people? Are you present? Are you showing up? And so, I believe Berkeley is the only top 10 school actually that has this idea about the mind and the heart of the leader. So that that's where that all comes

from. And I'm going to be coming out, I hope next year with a book. Leadership is love: the power of human connection.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, I can't wait to read that book because your TED talk on this was incredible. For everyone listening, we'll we'll drop Dr. Rittenberg's TED talk in in the in the show notes, so you can click on it and watch it. But the reason why I asked you that question is because I think that people have a lot of feelings wrapped around the word love, and sometimes they need a book like Leadership is Love or somebody to explain some context around what do you mean? Like I'm trying to hit my sales goals and my boss is breathing down my neck. This doesn't feel like leadership is love. And what you shared is it's about caring about someone else. It's about connection. And you also share something interesting that we were talking about also. The power of human connection and also the heartbreak of human connection, and one of the thoughts or one of the ideas we were talking about is how we're seeing ghosting happen a lot in the workplace. And I know it's it's joked about nonstop

in personal dating relationships, like you go out with someone on a date one night, and they're like, "Oh, I could see our us getting married and us having babies, and then all of a sudden you never hear from the person again. That's kind of like the joke, right?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Ghosting, completely ghosting, yeah,

Amy Lynn Durham: right. And so my question to you is, why not ghost? Why not ghost someone if I feel uncomfortable and I'm being devil's advocate. I see it happen all the time with people. They feel uncomfortable having what might be a seemingly difficult conversation, so then they ghost, so they don't have to feel that uncomfortable moment. So, what do you have to say about this sort of energy that some of us are experiencing with this ghosting each other, and even with people that apply for jobs? Some companies will have them jump through like 10 hoops to try to get the job, and then they just don't hear from them. Like, like what? Like you know what I mean. So why why have we gotten here, and how can we heal this?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Well, that's a beautiful question, and the way you can heal it is quite simple: communicate, communicate, communicate. If, for instance, it's not working out, send an email. If it's too uncomfortable to speak directly to the person. You know you're a great person. I don't think we'll be probably meeting again, but it's you know nothing personal. It's you know chemistry. Or I'm really busy right now. Let's get back together in a couple months. But this whole area, which I am very very focused on, we call institutional violence. I'm calling it institutional violence, and what it is is that it's when someone's ghosted or somebody's canceled. I mean, there's something about the word cancel. I don't know if you have any physical reaction to it, but I do, where I'm canceling our meeting, or I'm canceling our lunch. I've always felt a kind of sinking feeling because I was either looking forward to conversation, seeing the person, but suddenly I'm canceling you,

and cancel feels to me it's borderline crossing a boundary with my integrity, you're canceling my humanity. You're canceling my presence. You're canceling my personhood, and it's completely wrapped up with the internet, with social media. This whole idea of I don't feel comfortable with conflict, so I'll just make it electronic, or I won't do it at all. And it was interesting because I did a little research study of 10 people. Some were students, some were colleagues. You know some of them, and I just said, "Has anyone ever ghosted you for no reason, meaning that you don't know why they just stopped talking to you? I mean, just absolutely cut you off. And I'm going to do another study because eight out of 10 had unbelievable stories about. I don't know what I did. I don't believe I said anything wrong. Everything seemed fine. We knew each other for 10 years, and suddenly, I don't hear anymore. And I write, and I hear nothing, and I hear nothing. So there's something about Social

media, something about, and there's a lot of positive in social media. I'm not, you know, kind of putting that to the side of the road, but something about the COVID period was not just the virus, and not just people suffering in the pandemic, and not just whatever you know happened to people, including people dying, but it had a societal effect as well, which is we're now virtual, and even though the virus is not really rampant at this moment, I'm going to keep it all virtual, so that I keep seeing online. This class will be a virtual experience, a live virtual experience, which I translate that to. Unless you know people are calling in from all over the world, that's different. That's international, and I. Understand that the airfare is really, really high, but if it's right here in Berkeley, or right in San Francisco, or right in your town, what's the virtual thing all about? And I believe it has to do with convenience. I don't have to make the effort. Yeah, I'll teach an okay

class, but that we know that live work is very powerful, and live interaction and live human connection really, really powerful. So I'm very, very interested in understanding this withdrawal of real human connection, up close and personal, and I'm interested also in the amount of hurt and damage that happens to people through well, two of the things: cancel culture, ghosting, gaslighting-it's very damaging to the human spirit, and that I think all of us are good people. I've met very few bad people, and we're doing our best, and we're trying to make that effort and you know find our little place in the sun. In the meantime, you're gusting me, and I'm feeling horrible, and I'm feeling isolated, and I'm feeling like I did something wrong.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, I think that word "cancel, in general, like you were saying, feels like you're being discarded. And what is worrisome for me is if everyone is afraid to speak because they're afraid of being canceled. We again lose human connection, and so you know the question is why say the hard thing? Because I think people are afraid of one saying the wrong thing and then being canceled, but to what you just said, we're all we're all human and we're all just approaching life at the best that we can from the place that we are, and so I think we have to have some grace for each other in these moments. The other part of that that I want to hear from you is, why say the hard thing if I feel uncomfortable? Why should someone say the hard, uncomfortable thing instead of ghosting someone? Why should they have the conversation? Why should they tell the person, "Hey, we're really sorry we chose someone else for this position, or why should they tell somebody, "Hey, I

need to pause from this friendship. I I don't know. I'm just making this stuff up right now, but like, I think they tend to be afraid of judgment, afraid of some sort of uncomfortable feeling. Why do the hard thing?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Right. Well, my own point of view, and you know, you and my students, so you know, kind of what my whole approach is. Sometimes it's important to go into the danger zone. So, in other words, we're in our comfort zone. We experiment a bit with the stretch zone. Let me, you know, try to get out there and and make a business passion speech, or like the beautiful scene you did from Little Foxes, Lily Hellman's Little foxes, but then there's the danger zone. I'm gonna now have a conversation about what's working and what needs work, what's working and what needs work, and I grew up in a time that the power of dialog was absolutely the Berkeley Gold Standard, meaning we all disagreed with each other. It could be the the war effort, it could be Cesar Chavez, it could be Angela Davis, the free speech movement. But nobody got canceled. We sat there all night if we had to, till five in the morning, working it through, and that the power of dialog is very difficult, but

very worthwhile because there's learning for everybody. Everybody gains through the power of dialog. I understand you more. You understand me. I'm not here to convert you. I'm not here to bring you over to my point of view, but I I can understand where you're coming from, and what of course we do in Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. The power of storytelling is such an incredible part of the program, and what we want our coaches to do with their coachees, because everybody has a story. Everybody has probably 50 stories, and the writer Gertrude Stein put it very well when she said, "The human story is never boring. The human story is never boring. Real people are never boring, and so very often when. You share your story. I come to know you, and I come to understand where you're coming from, and my empathy grid just shoots up at that point. Wow! Look what she's been through. Look at all the things that she's overcome. I remember one of my first clients. I couldn't understand

what was going on, but it was local, and I was doing a major coaching contract at a very large California company. And I noticed that whenever I spoke, she'd smile, but she'd kind of cringe. I'd kind of see, "Oh my God, I don't know what I'm saying, but something's really bothering Donna. Something's really bothering her. So I, you know, again, high coach relationship, and so I finally mustered up my courage, and I said to her, "We have a cup of coffee, Donna. I just want to know: is there anything I'm doing wrong? Because if I am, you know, my goal is if you're to be comfortable in our conversation, our working together. And she said, "Oh, Mark, I'm so sorry. I love what you're doing, but you see, my first marriage was very abusive, and I suffered a lot. And it's not your fault that you have this powerful male voice, and when I hear a powerful male voice, that whole story is all triggered up again. So I'm so sorry, and now that I've said it, we're going to be fine. I said, "Well,

look, I can tone it down. She said, "I don't want you to, but now that I've said it, and thank you for giving me the space to actually say it, because I'd never said anything like that before. And if you really think about the most successful self-help group in the world, is AA or O A, any of the A's, College Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and it's successful. My own observation is because people have a chance to take responsibility for what they're saying, and have a chance to self-reclude, and other people listen in a very caring way to their testimony, and it becomes a group healing. And I just feel the storytelling is another derivative of that.

Amy Lynn Durham: There's two things that that we talk about on the Create Magic at Work podcast in depth throughout the past three years. One is being a wise and effective change agent. It's one of the capstone skills in spiritual intelligence. The other is being a wise and compassionate leader. And the the piece that stands out for me, the the two things, is when you talk about how you would sit with each other and have dialog and conversation, and nobody had to convince someone of something, and nobody was canceled because they said something that they didn't agree with. That is the true highest level of a wise and effective change agent. That is people coming together, holding opposing views in the same space, and working in some way to find a commonality to create a win-win, where everyone leaves feeling there was some sort of win-win created. The ultimate wise and effective change agent can hold opposing views in the same space and uncover root cause and not rush to quick fix.

So that story of everybody being together, even until three a.m. that's what that is. The storytelling piece where every human has a story, and every human's story is impactful. That really taps into how we can be wise and compassionate leaders. Because then you hear someone sharing, and you're like, "Ah, just like me, this person has experienced pain, or this person is trying to avoid pain in their life, just like me. This person is trying to experience joy, just like me, just like me. This person is trying to get through life, just like me, and so it brings that human connection where we can see the light within the body of each of us, and recognize that we're all just like you said earlier. We're all just trying to get by on this journey, right? And we're going to make mistakes,

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: and we're trying to do our best.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yes, and that is such a great way to approach others with the framing. And from the lens of, oh, this person is trying to do the best with what they know in the space that they're in today, and so how can I approach this situation with love and perhaps compassion and forgiveness? So I know you talk about forgiveness quite a bit, and some people even say that they might be triggered by the word forgiveness because of maybe some religious trauma or something like that. So I also offer like release, maybe the word release, or maybe like what, why forgiveness, as far as like why should we choose that path of release or forgiveness?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Yeah, I think it's really very much tied up, and I think all the spiritual practices in the world's great religions unite on this. We're not perfect. We're not perfect. We're going to say the wrong thing. We're going to say the wrong word. We're going to say this, and again, I would never fight for a word if it actually triggers somebody, because if triggers them, let's change the word. We're looking for, you know, people to be able to transform in that way. And interesting, I just had a student in at the university in my high impact leadership executive class, and just a beautiful, beautiful person of Indian descent, and she happened to be part of a major sale of the company that she was part of. I mean, really sold for a lot of money, and I just said, "Would you mind speaking of the class, just a little bit about how you've created yourself, how you've created your life, how you lived your life. He had a huge smile, just about four foot 11, his huge smile

from ear to ear, and she said, "For me, I only have one thing to say. There's one value: the power of forgiveness, the power of forgiveness. I'm not perfect, and no one is around me. And just because something doesn't work out one way, does not mean it's the end. It might be the beginning. And I just find that dealing in the corporate world, clients, academia. When people embrace the power of forgiveness, it indicates in me, to me, the quality of the individual, the capacity for a new beginning, the capacity to see things through a different lens, one of my largest projects was in South Africa, and it was a seven-year project for the Avis Corporation in culture change. And the CEO came to every workshop. I mean, I couldn't believe it-2900 people. He was there every time, just about for the whole time, and it was a three day workshop. And he was very clear. He said, "My values, other than you know, we try harder, which was the brand value of Avis. He said, "People are more

important than cars. People are more important than cars, and I want us to live the values daily of empathy, honesty, humanity, empathy, honesty, humanity, and this is the organization that I want, and this is the competitive advantage. They were number three at the time. I think budget and Hertz were two and one, and within two years they became number one. Empathy, honesty, humanity, and they're still number one. And he said, "We are not simply employees. We are brand ambassadors, and each person in this company is like a human billboard, a human billboard of grace and honesty, and stands for what we believe in. And he said, "I know that this isn't going to work for everybody, so feel free. My door is open. I will help you find a job. If this isn't working for you, and you get at least as much pay, if not more, he said. But do us both a favor. This is what I'm about, and this is the organization I want, and I'm willing to give my all to it. And it was, again, the most

extraordinary project. So whenever we land at Johannesburg Airport now, we see these incredible posters that Avis's brand ambassadors. Welcome you to the beloved country. Very emotional for me because well to the beloved country because we did this right after Nelson Mandela came to power, and because Nelson Mandela came to power didn't mean that everything was hunky dory. In fact, you should have seen, you know, some of the heartbreak, the racial incidents, all kinds of things. But we worked it through. We weren't afraid of it. We knew that transformation. You pay a price for transformation. It's not easy. It's in the danger zone, so that very, very much to do with with people caring about each other and doing for each other. Just a very quick story. I still remember there was this director. He was white. He was an Afrikaner of Afrikaners descent, and he said to me when he was assigned, and he's one of our best faculty members. He said, "I'm just not ready to be in a class with

a black teacher. I know that Nelson Mandela's coming to power, but I'm just not ready.

I said, "So what are you going to do about that? He said, "Well, maybe I shouldn't be here. I said, "Well, maybe you shouldn't. So why don't you just sit down for a bit and think about why this is so difficult for you? Anyway, he persevered, and in the final hour of the class, he got up before everybody, and he apologized To the teacher, who's also a graduate of the coaching institute, and said, "I'm hanging my head in shame because I have never been so educated as I have been in your class. You had so much patience, and you were full of non-judgment. You never judged me, and I am. I am honoring your grace. So you see, it's not easy building trust in a team. It's not easy coaching somebody who doesn't even want to be coached or doesn't ensure where they're coming from, but it's all about patience, and it's about, as Mandela put it so beautifully, the triumph of the human spirit. Just the triumph of the human spirit. We're on a journey, and if we stay and stave the course, we're

going to get there, and that's what it's about.

Amy Lynn Durham: And what if you had canceled him immediately?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Exactly, and just said, "Well, there's no place for you. And you know what was wonderful is that he disclosed to me later. His name was Derek. He said, "You need to know. I called my wife, and I asked her to send. In those days, we were still using fax of like out of the dark ages, still using a fax machine. And he said, "Would you just write me a note that the kids aren't well, and I need to come home? And apparently, five minutes later, she called him. Nothing to do with me. His wife called him and said, "If this is who you are, I'm not sure you should come home. It's a new beginning. It's a new country, and you better get with the program because you're not going to make it. And this is what ultimately happened of of incredible understanding and compassion, and you're so right when you say what would have happened if we canceled him. And you know, again, I just my problem is giving you stories, but when I just think about all the work with AT and T, and

we're in the Deep South, and we're doing all kinds of stuff, union management. Oh my God, union management, and the sabotage very often of you know a union leader with a management with a a top manager. But again, if you just let the dialog happen, the conversation happen. You get to the power of apology, the power of apology, public apology for the way I treated you, public apology for sabotaging you, public apology for disrespecting you, and so this is what keeps me going at my rather advanced age because I can't get over that human beings can commit miracles, and it's the miracle of understanding.

Amy Lynn Durham: Love it. Let's add to that the power of coaching right now. How does that speak to the the time that we're in, where people are? Disconnected people are ghosting. People canceling. I mean, I think more than ever today, more people have therapists than ever before, and part of me thinks they're paying for a friend half the time because we have so much technology to connect. We have so many things, but we're we're we are still disconnected. So, how can I mean? Create Magic at Work is an executive coaching firm, Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. What's that healing that comes from the power of coaching? You've been doing this. I mean, you're like one of the wise elders of coaching, right? For decades, especially with these stories that that you're sharing, so why coaching for leaders in the workplace besides teaching people how to negotiate their pay? Just kidding.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Well, very very much my great mentor. I was so lucky to have three amazing, powerful women as mentors as I grew up, and then later in life, and Angelus was my was my coach for Angelarian for 14 years, and what she coached me because she recognized you have some problems, you have some big problems, and you're supposed to do some great work in the world, and I'll coach you because I want to be of service to the world, and you need to be of service. So that's that's the big thing that coaching gives people a sounding board. I mean, are we aware how many lonely people there are in the world who have no one to talk to, no one to talk to, nobody to vent to, nobody to just. I mean, it's on a call today with a very very powerful leader. At the end, he said, "My God, it just feels so good. It feels so good. You just listened to me, and you didn't interrupt me, and you just let me have it. I've been under so much stress, flying all around the world, and I do believe

that we, in the coaching profession, we are in the act of service. We are there to serve other people, and to open the channel, as the great dancer Martha Graham said, open the channel and keep the channel open. Open the channel of creativity, curiosity, of leadership, whatever the person needs, and to help them discover in themselves the, if you will, leadership skills that will serve the workplace in 2025. I feel that, you know, more than ever, the power of dialog, and as we say at UC Berkeley, beyond yourself, one of the principles of the business school, to go beyond yourself, do something for somebody else. It's not all about you. It's about all of us. And if we can help somebody else, we can free other people to become their most authentic selves, or as we sometimes say, the best version of themselves. See, that's a tagline: best version of themselves. But what are you really doing in coaching to help that individual truly become the best version of themselves? And when

you go deep with their agreement, obviously, you're able to actually help the individual transform to become somebody within the organization that people look up to, and is truly in the act of service.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, it's helping people have that deeper sense of meaning in life and tap into doing work for the greater good. And on that note, I I would like to ask you. I'm on the Edge Walker leadership team, and I ask some Edge Walker coaching questions from Dr. Judy Neal to a lot of the guests that talk about similar themes, like we're talking about today. And one of those questions is, what can you sense but not yet see for the future of take your pick work or humanity or both.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Great question, and I wish I could give a global answer, but I can't because if Amy is CEO, I can tell you we're going to build a workplace of compassion, mutual understanding, hard work, and support. We're going to have a support system going all the times. If somebody else who's emotionally unavailable. Who is not willing to stand up for what they believe in, or what we need to believe in the world? I see it as moving towards a dead end, because I put great emphasis in the leader, and I feel that a lot of leaders are awol They're absent without leave. I hear it all the time because I'm constantly doing research and constantly doing surveys. I haven't seen my manager in nine months. He doesn't ever call. She never appears. What's that about? Why are you awol Why are you not with your people? You live five miles from the site, and so I feel very, very strongly that it's not going to be one way, but those institutions, academic, nonprofit, what, whatever, that

have someone who's living the mind and the heart of the leader, who is truly a service leader and a servant leader. I think those work groups are going to soar and be amazing. What I do feel in general, and again, this is maybe very, very California, but more and more in the Silicon Valley, which is like its own economy, I'm seeing a demand to get back to work, to get back to the institution, and that this virtual stuff, where you miss all the water cooler conversations, you miss the lunches, you miss the the picnics. It's not just a job. It's you're a social animal. And again, to quote my hero Nelson Mandela, when they asked him, "Now we're in prison, mr. President. What do we do now? We're in prison. He says, "Why are you calling it a prison? This is our university. And said, "With all due respect, sir, this is Rob Robin Island, middle of the Atlantic, makes Alcatraz look like a luxury luxury ship. And they said, "With all due respect, sir, where are the

teachers? He says, "Go to the washroom and look at the mirror, and you'll find the teacher. You'll find the teacher, and each one must teach one. You teach me, I'll teach you, and the collective wisdom is mind-boggling. What that is, so I feel that those groups where you honor each other as a teacher, for one another, are going to be in great great shape.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yes, thank you for sharing. That's a call for us to take responsibility for how we want to lean into what the future of these spaces look like, and sense with creative, positive visualization what that could be. So, thank you for sharing that. If you have one takeaway or one thing that you want everyone to remember or to just take with them today, one one piece of magic that you want the listeners to take with them today from our conversation, what would that be?

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Wow, that's a good one. So I'm going to choose one. Okay, so another great teacher of mine. See, this was great about being older because I had these great teachers. You know, I went to Berkeley. I graduated in 1975. God, I couldn't even get into Berkeley now, but in those days. But so, man, they're named Carl Rogers, famous sociologist, Carl Rogers, and he said, "If you have one life to live, live it with unconditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard. We said, "Dr. Rogers, what does that mean? He said, "Giving to others without any expectation of reciprocity, do good deeds for others, create acts of kindness for others, and you'll need nothing in return. And that's what I believe in. In other words, in the wonderful movie about Leonard Bernstein Maestro, when his wife was in her final days, her daughter said, "Mommy, what do you need? Anything, mommy. What do you need? And she said, "All I need is kindness, kindness. So I say one

thing that we can do that doesn't cost a penny is to be kind, and whether it's received or not, that's another matter. But I do believe that kindness is universal. I heard it in Singapore. I've heard it in Abu Dhabi. I've heard it everywhere. I just want to be kind. I want to receive acts of kindness, and I want to feel like my life is worth living, and not this terrible struggle.

Amy Lynn Durham: So good, so good. What I feel like you're saying is like kindness without detachment, like without the expectation. Kindness with detachment. I think that is a very powerful doubt to to leave everyone on. Dr. Rittenberg, thank you so much for being a guest today on Create Magic at Work. This conversation flew by as I knew it would, and just we'll have all the ways for everyone to grab a copy of Leadership Is Love, the pre-order, watch your TED talk, and all of those things in the show notes. So thank you so much for being a guest, and thank you for sending some magic to everyone today.

Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Well, thank you so much, Amy. And your questions are like magic. Your questions. You are such an incredible host of this program, and it's just you make it so easy to codify our ideas and to articulate them. So, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Amy Lynn Durham: Thank you. Thank you for saying that. And hopefully, we'll have you back when the book comes out, and maybe do some more fun conversations that help lead with love.