Think With Your Head, Lead With Your Heart
- CHERI DIXON
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Why the best leaders balance clarity, courage, and compassion
I should have known my first year as a professional was going to be rough based on day one. I had just moved 1,000 miles from my tiny hometown to one of the largest cities in the United States; a city of endless freeways, tropical heat, and more people than I had ever encountered in one place. That morning, dressed in my best “I’m-a-real-professional-now” outfit, I climbed into my minivan and excitedly headed to my very first staff development day.
I survived the freeway. I conquered the toll roads. But my morning commute suddenly shifted when I spent ten full minutes trapped on one of Houston’s infamous freeway turnarounds, circling like I was in a bad sitcom. By the time I escaped, I was sweaty, anxious, and very late. I am sure the city has video footage that they continue to pull out, just to get a good laugh!
When I finally walked in, my new boss, who hadn’t even been the one to hire me, gave me a look that said, “This is not the first impression you want to make.” I wanted to disappear.
But then something happened that changed everything. A familiar leader from the management team walked over, touched my arm, smiled, and said, “I’m so glad you made it. I’m excited to work with you.” In that moment, frazzled, intimidated, and wondering what I had gotten myself into, I felt safe.
That first year was hard. I stumbled constantly. I questioned myself more than once. And if that leader hadn’t checked in on me, asked about my family, supported me, and still held me accountable with compassion, I might have walked away entirely. Instead, she became my mentor, and eventually the model I followed when I stepped into leadership roles of my own.
What she taught me was simple, but profound: Yes, the work matters. Yes, accountability matters. But organizations are not built on policies, programs, or procedures alone. Organizations are built on people. No training manual ever taught me that.
Organizations are not built on policies, programs, or procedures alone. Organizations are built on people.
No corporate initiative ever captured it. I learned it by living it.
Years later, when I stepped into leadership roles in struggling organizations, teams marked by burnout, fractured systems, and people desperate for clarity, I carried two truths with me:
If you believe leadership is only about loving your people, you will never get sustainable results.
And if you think that you are not in the people business, you are destined to fail.
I have watched leaders forget one or both. They try to solve human problems with paperwork. They try to fix culture with a new initiative. They try to manage people without understanding them. It never works. Because solutions that last have the right balance between people and programs.
Leadership Isn’t Only Heart
Let me be clear: leadership is not all hugs and hallway encouragement. Leading with heart means nothing if you don’t also lead with your head.
Thinking with your head is not cold, it is responsible. When you lead an organization, your people deserve more than good intentions. They deserve clarity, structure, and a leader willing to make decisions that are uncomfortable but necessary.
Thinking with your head is not cold, it is responsible.
One of the fastest ways to create chaos in any organization? Be unclear. If you don’t know the target, your team cannot hit it. If you are inconsistent, your people will be too. If you are vague, everyone will create their own rules.
I once stepped into an organization where every department had a different definition of success. Employees were frustrated. Leaders were overwhelmed. Performance lagged. The organization wasn’t broken; it was unaligned. The moment we clarified expectations, priorities, and processes, the tension lifted. People could finally breathe.
Clarity does not restrict people. Clarity frees them. People do not burn out because they don’t care. They burn out because they are working in chaos.
In that same organization, conflict was constant, not because people were difficult, but because expectations were inconsistent. Every leader responded differently. Every issue was handled on the fly. It wasn’t a people problem. It was a systems problem.
When we built consistent systems for communication, accountability, and decision-making, everything changed. My employees felt supported. My teams felt safer. Trust increased. Systems protect people, create fairness, and stabilize culture.
And then there is the part of leadership no one likes to talk about: the hard calls. Leadership means saying “not now” when everyone wants the shiny new idea. It means repositioning people when their strengths no longer match the role. It means having difficult conversations early, before small problems become organizational fires.
One of the hardest decisions I ever made involved moving a highly respected team member who was struggling in their role. It wasn’t personal. It was strategic. And while it was uncomfortable, it protected the team, the mission, and ultimately that individual.
Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is choosing what serves the organization, even when it costs you comfort.
Thinking with your head builds trust. It creates stability. It keeps the organization standing.
But if we stop there, we miss the soul of leadership. Because strategy alone does not transform organizations. People do.
The Power of Leading with Your Heart
Leading with your heart is not soft leadership. It is human leadership. People do not follow titles. People follow people. When your team trusts you, they will run beside you. When they don’t, they will disengage or leave.
Empathy is not a bonus skill. Empathy is a strategic skill. You cannot lead people you do not understand. You cannot support performance if you don’t understand pressure. And you cannot address behavior without understanding what is driving it.
And your culture is key. Culture is not built during company retreats or quarterly meetings. Culture is built in the small moments: At 7:05 a.m. when you say, “I’m glad you’re here.” When you sit beside an employee who feels like they are failing. When you ask about someone’s family and remember the answer. When you acknowledge loss, stress, or burnout instead of ignoring it.
Those moments matter. They communicate, “You are not just a role. You are a human being I value.”
I once worked with a brilliant team member who was completely burned out. Instead of handing them another strategy or productivity tool, I offered time, support, and psychological safety. They didn’t just stay. They thrived. And eventually, they became a leader themselves.
Heart-centered leadership changes people. And changed people change organizations.
The Tension Where Great Leadership Lives
So yes, leadership is about people. And yes, it is also about systems that anchor the work. The real magic happens where those two truths meet.
Because the reality is if you lead with only your heart, chaos will take you out. And, if you lead with only your head, you will lose the people you need to carry the mission. Thriving organizations live in the tension between both.
After decades of leading teams and organizations that were one decision away from collapse, I can tell you exactly what separates leaders who transform organizations from those who merely manage them. It is not charisma, a flashy initiative, or a great slogan posted on the wall.
It comes down to three non-negotiables:
Build real relationships. People follow trust, not titles.
Build clear systems, processes, and procedures. All heart and no structure leads straight to burnout.
Embrace accountability, starting with yourself. The standard you model becomes the standard your team lives by.
Accountability is not a “I caught you doing wrong”. Accountability is a promise…a promise that every person in the organization is doing their best work in service of something bigger than themselves.
When you pull it all together, thriving organizations are not built by accident. They are built by leaders who are intentional about three things:
Building real relationships, because people are the heartbeat of every organization.
Establishing clear systems, processes, and expectations, because chaos never produced excellence.
Holding themselves and their teams accountable, not as punishment, but as a commitment to the mission.
Because at the end of the day, this is not just leadership work. This is life-shaping work. The best leaders know this work is hard. But they also know the truth I learned on my very first day: We must think with our head, and lead with our heart.
Meet the expert:
Cheri Dixon is an Educational Coach, Consultant, and Leadership Expert with over 30 years of experience transforming classrooms and schools into thriving communities of learning. A former principal turned international best-selling author, TEDx speaker, and podcaster, Cheri helps educators and leaders “do hard better” by aligning people, processes, and purpose. Passionate about building strong, heart-centered leadership, she empowers others to lead with courage, clarity, and compassion.
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