Gautham Pallapa - Leading with Empathy

The first time I was given the opportunity of moving out of an individual contributor role and into management, I was nervous and scared. With a lot of trepidation (and a strong imposter syndrome), I took on the management role, as I viewed it as an opportunity to earn a seat at the table to champion my teams' wants and needs. It was a high-pressure job, and, being inexperienced, I made many mistakes along the way, which increased my stress and anxiety.

I was not a stranger to stress, having dealt with it throughout my life. I was two years younger than everyone in school, and while it did not seem like much, it was considerable pressure, especially in my formative years. My school and college were one of the top schools in my state, and there was an expectation that I, along with a few of my classmates, would excel in the final examinations with flying colors. I started suffering from tension headaches at the age of 12. Within a year, it became so severe that I was placed on medication until I was 15. I can still remember that sensation of dull, aching pain in my forehead, sides, and back of my head as if someone was hammering at my skull from inside. Those episodes lasted for hours at a time, and to compensate for lost exam prep time, I would get up early or sleep late to make it up. Stress and tension headaches were my study partners growing up.

These headaches went away when I entered college, probably because I didn't exert myself so much. But, like an old-time friend that you run into on social media, these headaches came back when I entered management.

Looking back, I believe that my move into management enabled me to spearhead numerous initiatives and institute processes and tools that improved my teams and organizations' quality of life. However, it came at a huge personal cost in terms of stress, anxiety, personal health, political capital, and emotional drain. Despite this toll on me personally, I still believe that deciding to be a strong champion for humans and their quality of life was one of the best decisions that I have made. The adversity that I faced allows me to truly empathize with humans at a genuine level, embodied by my mantra, “Transform with Empathy.”This passion compelled me to write a book on empathy.

The world has undergone an unprecedented amount of adversity in the last few years. We have had hurricanes, tornadoes, racial inequality, riots, a global pandemic, wildfires, and unemployment, to list a few. There has been so much death, pain, stress, anxiety, and suffering in this world. It has been exceedingly challenging for optimists to find silver linings in this mountain of adversity that was 2020, and 2021 doesn't seem to be any better with the delta and lambda variants of Covid. However, it is essential to accept reality and the impact this hardship has had on humanity before we can look to emerge more resilient as a community. And that is what I have attempted to do in this book. Leading with Empathy is my attempt to elevate the importance of empathy in our technologically advanced world and champion human quality of life.

I start this book by exploring some of the events of 2020—the global pandemic and its impact on various industry verticals, racial injustice, and virtual schooling. I then explore empathy and how people can become leaders by acting with empathy. Employee empathy is a passion of mine, and I illustrate how empathy combined with technology can improve human quality of life in organizations, especially with a remote workforce. I have consciously not explored any political themes in this book. It is not because of my lack of belief in their crippling impact on humanity, but because I did not feel confident to have an optimistic or unbiased approach to the topic, especially as an immigrant still being put through the wringer of an unfair and draconian system.

As part of my work, I partner with enterprises on their transformation journey—a critical necessity for a world that has needed to go digital, remote, and contactless overnight. I have been lucky to amplify my call for empathy in the workplace through talks, keynotes, workshops, and executive mentoring. This book is an endeavor to elevate the conversation to all humans and another medium for recognizing what the world is going through and improving the quality of life of people around us, even if it is by a small amount. We currently face tremendous adversity, and there is suffering all around. My goal is to impress upon you the same message that my mother imparted to me. An opportunity will always present itself to people who have the desire to help others. All of us can choose to embrace our humanity and alleviate the less fortunate suffering around us. It does not require a massive amount of effort. Every small action counts.

Writing this book has been a wonderful, therapeutic, and fulfilling experience, but it has also been pretty frustrating at times. With the rate at which world events have been changing and rapidly evolving, I have found myself constantly catching up to them and revising my thoughts based on my learnings. Some of these events have been positive, such as vaccine administration to society, and restaurants and travel opening up again. Other events have been sad, depressing, or horrifying, such as the resurgence of COVID-19 through the delta variant, people making vaccination a political topic in the United States, or an uptick in racial violence. These are interesting and challenging times we live in.

In a way, the experience of writing this book has also been profoundly exhilarating, in the sense that I have been able to employ several Lean, Agile, and DevOps methodologies as this book moved from concept to consumption. Like other companies adapting to a dynamic environment, I went through a transformation of my own, albeit in a very personal way.

Finally, this book is also a eulogy to my mother. I am confident that she would have been a co-author of this book if she were still here, bringing her unique perspective, stories, experiences, and opinions. I have tried my best to channel her spirit and compassion in my writing. I hope you enjoy this book and join me in transforming humanity with empathy!

Dr. Gautham Pallapa

Writing this book was more challenging than I envisioned but more fulfilling than I could have ever imagined. I was very close to my mother, and when I lost her to cancer in 2009, her death deeply impacted me. Since then, I have tried to emulate/extoll her virtues, spread awareness of her achievements, and cherish her memories. However, they always seem to have fallen short of capturing how amazing she was as a human being until I decided to dedicate this book to her. I have included several stories of how my mother shaped my life and made me a better person through her love, kindness, persistence, teachings, and discussion. I was not exactly an easy child, and I am forever indebted to her patience and for not having given up hope.

My wife, Rama, has been my rock throughout this journey. She has always been supportive of my endeavors, supporting me and staying by my side through thick and thin. Her ability to challenge my theses and provide a different perspective has kept me focused. I am eternally grateful that she does this with love and patience and still has not gotten exhausted from putting up with me and my craziness over the last 15 years. She is an immensely strong person, and I am fortunate to be a part of her life.

My son, Buddh, has been a treasure trove of learning, feedback, and a great partner in many of my experiments. Helping him adapt to virtual schooling, supplementing his emotional and physical development through a pandemic—reliving the joy of playing with Lego or soccer, coming up with inventive ways to entertain ourselves, grilling, Friday pizza and movie nights—these memories are priceless. Social distancing and lockdown enabled me to spend more time with my family than I have ever done before, and I feel blessed for that. Working with my son on experiments together, introducing Lean, Agile, and DevOps practices into his daily routine have been extremely rewarding. These experiences taught him to be emotionally aware, secure, and control his emotions, and he has given me valuable feedback if an experiment succeeded or failed. He was a champ and a trooper, though he might also be resigned to the fact that his dad was running social experiments on him and messing with his mind!