724: How to Bring Out the Best in People, with Donna Hicks

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Education, Business, Management, Self-improvement, Careers

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donna Hicks: Leading with Dignity
Donna Hicks is an Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and the former Deputy Director of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR). She has facilitated dialogues in numerous unofficial diplomatic efforts and was a consultant to the BBC in Northern Ireland, where she co-facilitated a television series, Facing the Truth, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. She is the author of Dignity: It’s Essential Role in Resolving Conflict and Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture That Brings Out the Best in People*.

Everyone wants to be treated in a way that shows they matter. We may differ in status, but we are all equal in dignity. In this episode, Donna and I explore how appreciating dignity can help us bring out the best in people.
Key Points

Everyone wants to be treated in a way that shows they matter.
Dignity is different than respect. Everyone has dignity, but not everyone deserves respect.
A major misconception of dignity is that we receive our worth from external sources.
We’re at our best when connected to our own dignity, connected to the dignity of others, and connected the dignity of something bigger.
Start with vulnerability and empathy. These open the doors to connecting with your own dignity and the dignity of others.
We may differ in status, but we are all equal in dignity.

Resources Mentioned

Dignity: It’s Essential Role in Resolving Conflict* by Donna Hicks
Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture That Brings Out the Best in People* by Donna Hicks

Interview Notes
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Related Episodes

How to Get Way Better at Accepting Feedback, with Sheila Heen (episode 143)
Use Power for Good and Not Evil, with Dacher Keltner (episode 254)
Help People Show Up as Themselves, with Frederic Laloux (episode 580)

Discover More
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Transcript

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0:00.0	We all want to be treated in a way that shows we matter. In this episode, how appreciating
0:06.6	dignity can help us bring out the best in people. This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 724.
0:15.1	Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.
0:23.6	Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host,
0:29.5	Dave Stahofiak. Leaders aren't born. They're made. And this weekly show helps you discover
0:36.0	leadership wisdom through insightful
0:38.4	conversations. One of the things that I keep coming across again and again in my work with
0:44.2	leaders and in talking with our listeners over the years is the desire that so many of us have
0:49.8	to bring out the best in people. We have a heart for that. We work to do that every single day,
0:56.5	so many of us. And yet, of course, we do fall short as well. And one of the concepts that I have
1:02.6	come across so wonderfully in the recent past is the concept in thinking more about the word
1:08.4	dignity and how we, how dignity brings out the best
1:12.4	in the people that we have the privilege to support. Today, I'm so pleased to be able to
1:18.4	welcome an expert who's done so much incredible work on dignity and will help us to do the best
1:24.8	and bring in out the best in others. I'm so pleased to introduce Donna Hicks.
1:28.3	She's an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University
1:33.0	and the former deputy director of the program on international conflict analysis and resolution.
1:38.3	She has facilitated dialogues in numerous unofficial diplomatic efforts and was a consultant
1:43.8	to the BBC in Northern Ireland,
1:46.1	where she co-facilitated a television series, facing the truth with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
1:51.7	She is the author of Dignity.
1:53.6	It's a central role in resolving conflict and leading with dignity, how to create a culture
	...

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