Alumni Talk - Leading with Purposeful Empathy

Leading with Purposeful Empathy: A Strategic Leadership Skill for an Era of Complexity. University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB), in collaboration with Adora Earth invites alumni, students and professionals to a high-impact leadership session with Dr Anita Nowak, examining empathy as a critical capability in navigating today’s social, technological and organisational complexity.

When: Wednesday, 04 March 2026 13:00 - 15:00 (GMT+2)
Where:UCT GSB LT4
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Event information

As institutions and leaders confront accelerating change across climate systems, artificial intelligence, geopolitical tension and workplace transformation, the limits of transactional and purely performance-driven leadership are becoming increasingly clear. Research across neuroscience, organisational psychology and management science now positions empathy as a foundational driver of trust, psychological safety, employee engagement, innovation and long-term organisational resilience.

This session brings rigorous research together with practical application, offering leaders evidence-based insights into why empathy is not a soft skill, but a strategic leadership competence essential for sustainable performance and human-centred organisations.

What Participants Will Gain

Participants will develop a deeper, evidence-based understanding of empathy and its relevance in contemporary leadership, explore how empathic leadership directly influences organisational outcomes, learn practical tools to strengthen empathy in everyday interactions, apply self-empathy practices to enhance resilience and mental wellbeing, and gain strategies for cultivating psychologically safe and high-performing organisational cultures.

Speakers

Dr Anita Nowak

Dr Anita Nowak is an internationally recognised authority on empathy, leadership and organisational culture, with over fifteen years of academic research and applied practice at the intersection of neuroscience, wellbeing, social impact and business performance. Dr Nowak is an award-winning educator and serves on faculty at McGill University and the McGill Executive Institute, where she teaches courses including Happiness Means Business and Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Her teaching bridges behavioural science, leadership practice and real-world organisational challenges. She is the founder of Purposeful Empathy by Design, a boutique advisory firm that partners with purpose-driven organisations globally to embed empathy into leadership development, organisational strategy and culture transformation. Her work supports executives and teams to build high-trust environments that strengthen performance while advancing wellbeing and inclusion. She is the author of the acclaimed book Purposeful Empathy: Tapping Our Hidden Superpower for Personal, Organisational and Social Change, and the host of a weekly podcast dedicated to advancing empathic consciousness in leadership and society.