Susan Britton traces her path to coaching through childhood moments of emotional sensitivity, like crying over "Puff the Magic Dragon" and rescuing stray animals. She argues that emotions and relational trust are essential to leadership, not obstacles to strategy, and that neuroscience now validates this integration.
I was always the one in my family who supposedly wore their heart on their sleeve. Like, I was just kind of in tune with people. I knew when people were hurt— hurting. I just had a sense about those kinds of things. And my kindergarten teacher— is my kindergarten Puff the Magic Dragon story— played Puff the Magic Dragon on the little record player, and I was the only kid in the entire class that was in tears because I realized that Puff was sorry and Jackie Paper went away and, you know, there was sadness there. Only one crying. So end of the day, my mom comes to pick me up and the kindergarten teacher says, Mrs. Britton, your daughter wears her heart on her sleeve. So I was also the one always bringing kittens home and stray friends for holidays and all of those things. So I get into coaching and I love it because it's got the humane element to it. But I was also working with a ton of leaders, executives that were just constantly like, feelings have nothing to do with it. Don't tell me about emotions. Let me analyze this. And I'm like, okay, there's a big disconnect between what I know to be true about the relational trust human piece of it and the reality of yes, it's gotta make sense. You've gotta add up, it's gotta add up. You've gotta have strategy and you've gotta be able I analyze it. So when neuroscience came around, I'm like, oh, finally a way to explain how the emotional human relational side of things plays into the whole picture.
Susan’s ICF Educator Award | The Heart Behind the Impact Katy Montgomery, PCC
