by Cameron Carrick
In a recent webinar, I had the privilege of speaking with Amy Fox and Moe Carrick about what it means to lead with heart in today’s world. What followed was one of the richest conversations I’ve been part of in years.
This series distills the most meaningful insights and reflections from that conversation—seven practices and ideas for those of us who want to lead more nobly, feel more deeply, and reconnect with the people we serve.
1. The High Calling of Noble Leadership
“I do not know of another way to help leaders lean into their full nobility or their full possibility than to help them un-numb their hearts, and to understand why numbness was there in the first place.”
Amy Fox began our conversation by reflecting on this idea. Her words hit deeply, especially when she tied the emotional disconnection of leaders to larger societal costs:
“Because we are disconnected from the numinous, from the community, from the commons, we make choices in business and in government that are less than lofty, less than noble, not infused with either mercy or compassion or alignment to divine law—and that comes at a huge cost to society.”
These words struck me as profoundly accurate, if challenging. This pattern of numb, isolated leadership does seem to underly self-serving decisions. And yet it leaves open just how leaders can embrace their highest potential.
I’ve always appreciated how Moe is able to translate the need for “noble leadership” into creating “workplaces fit for human life.” Moe’s reminder that “without the business, we’d have no jobs to go to” grounds me whenever I feel lost in theoretical ideals.
This tension demands meditation: How can we honor the highest calling of our leadership roles while navigating today’s immense economic, political, and social pressures?
For me, the first step is to cultivate my own intuitive, embodied sense of my highest calling in leadership and then to integrate that with the world I see around me.
I’m personally committed to finding this synergy between pursuing our highest innovative potential as business leaders and advancing our missions with greater awareness.
Leadership Reflection:
- What’s one recent decision you made that aligned with higher purpose or compassion?
- Take three deep breaths and reconnect with that sense of higher purpose now.
2. Start by opening your heart
In our conversation, Amy spoke with striking clarity about numbness—not as weakness, but as a survival strategy. Moe has written extensively about toxic workplaces and just how much sense it often makes to go numb in these environments.
The trouble is, what protects us in crisis can, over time, start to cost us something precious in our leadership.
As a result of the numbness we’ve been pointing at [throughout our conversation], most organizations bifurcate what’s personal and what’s professional. People do not feel invited to bring their interiority and emotional experience into the workplace.
Amy Fox
Pause here a moment. Have you ever swallowed a real thought before a team meeting? Suppressed a feeling in the name of “professionalism”?
When we mute what’s true inside us, we dull our capacity to sense what’s true in others. And the consequences ripple: disconnection, poor decisions, lost creativity and vitality.
The Heart Habit: starting to tell the truth
The first practice in Moe’s leadership tool, The Heart Habit, is deceptively simple: become familiar with emotion.
When I work with leaders, I often start by disentangling “emotion” from “feeling”:
- Feelings are the sensations that arise in our bodies in response to something we perceive.
- Emotions are the language we use to make sense of those sensations.
So: start with the feeling. Then, give it words.
What happens when we’re emotionally honest
Amy described beautifully what becomes possible when we heal the split between inner and outer life:
[When people are allowed to feel,] you don’t have to teach people how to care about each other. We want to walk each other home. We want to support each other when we’re hurting. Those are very natural impulses. You just have to get rid of the guardrails in the corporate culture that say it’s not appropriate [to be a feeling human].”
We’ve been taught to fear emotion in the workplace. But perhaps the deeper danger lies in pretending emotion doesn’t exist.
To lead wisely today, we need access to our whole selves—including the parts that feel. Especially those parts.
And yet—as Amy’s words suggest—this isn’t just a mindset shift. It’s a cultural one.
Think of the phrase we’re all taught from childhood: to “earn a living.”
Four small words, loaded with a malicious implication. That life—this one, wild and singular life—is something we must earn. That our right to exist is conditional. That our value is transactional.
In a culture that truly affirms life, nothing could be more absurd.
Creating cultures that honor emotional truth isn’t easy. It takes practice, courage, and a willingness to question long-held norms about what “professionalism” means. But the payoff is real: trust, vitality, and a workplace where people are more fully alive.
Warmly,
Cameron
Have you seen the feelings wheel? I keep a copy printed at home and at the office. It helps me refine my vocabulary of emotions.
