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Empathetic Leadership With Virginia Tech’s Brad Wurthman

Guest Brad Wurthman, Virginia Tech
18:09 min watch

Summary

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care… The ability to be kind, the ability to have empathy, the ability to want what’s best for people costs nothing. In a world where we need to talk about how do we find more staff, how do we resource the staff appropriately, being kind and being supportive is not something that shows up on a balance sheet in a negative way.” That’s Virginia Tech Executive Associate AD for External Affairs and Advancement Brad Wurthman in conversation with ADU’s Steph Garcia Cichosz at the 2024 PacNet Convention. Wurthman breaks down his empathetic leadership style and discusses his methods for empowering his team to push boundaries, embrace change, temper ego and prioritize personal balance. Wurthman: “Leadership, if I could distill it down for me, it’s the ability to know when do you press, when do you need to say we’re not in gear and we need to kick it up, and when do you pull someone aside and say, you’re doing great.”

The conversation is indexed below for efficient viewing (click the time stamp to jump to a specific question/topic).

  • - On your LinkedIn, you say you have a “people-oriented” approach. What does that mean in practice?
  • - How do you balance that with the competitive, scorecard business of college athletics?
  • - As you’ve ascended through your career, how have you struck the right tone - balancing the “We have fun here” with the seriousness of the work and your position as a manager?
  • - What is your strategy and method for pushing someone out of their comfort zone?
  • - Who enabled you to believe in yourself? What was that moment early in your career?
  • - You’re the president of NACMA; what have you learned from a best practices perspective - things you want to implement for the Hokies and things you want to implement for yourself as a leader?
  • - You oversee a variety of external units; how do you keep yourself organized? How do you continue to fire from all cylinders at all times?
  • - Let’s play out a scenario: you’re in a team meeting and there’s a decision to be made; you have voices in the room on opposing sides, feeling very convicted about their perspective, and you have people who are on the fence. What’s your role? What are you saying to your team?
  • - College athletics, arguably, embraces that hustle and grind culture - what do you do to turn it off? How do you optimize your recovery?
  • - When was your last vacation?