5 Steps to Empowering Highly Sensitive People in the Workplace

One of the greatest things about a community of people – and society overall – is the rich diversity we see in personalities and working styles. Whether you’re an introvertor an extrovert, whether you’re a creative thinker or someone who is logical and methodological, we all bring unique perspectives and strengths. The same is true of Highly Sensitive People, or HSPs. Regardless of what you may have heard, HSPs bring a rich set of skills to the workplace, and can even excel as leaders. Don’t believe us? Just listen to our podcast with Renee Kosiarek, an expert on HSPs and leadership. By the end of our conversation, you’ll feel empowered and ready to move up in your career.

Renee Kosiarek has extensive experience teaching conflict resolution, creativity, and leadership at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and has taught law students at DePaul University Chicago School of Law and Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Renee has written a book about creativity and leadership, and is a highly sensitive person who loves to educate and inspire other HSPs. She dreams of a world where Highly Sensitive people understand and love their traits, and use them to become fulfilled leaders and humans.

Kicking off our discussion, Renee reveals how she decided to expand her law career to include leadership coaching. As Renee explains, she loves law and always enjoyed learning about and practicing it. However, at a certain point, she began to notice how important she found leadership to be. Moreover, as a Highly Sensitive Person herself, Renee saw an opportunity to help other HSPs develop their leadership skills. It was a natural progression that grew from her experiences and passions.

Renee specifically wants to help Highly Sensitive People with their leadership skills. But before we can help HSPs, we must first define what makes a person highly sensitive. How can we spot HSPs in the wild? As it so happens, Renee can almost always spot an HSP! There are a host of key traits that define HSPs, such as being empathetic, feeling emotions very strongly, or overthinking and envisioning multiple ways that scenarios can play out. Renee describes more on the podcast. If any of those traits sound like you or someone you know, consider taking this quiz to see if you’re an HSP.

With their unique set of traits, do Highly Sensitive People face any unique challenges at work? Are these challenges internal or do colleagues contribute to them? Renee describes how HSPs may work differently from colleagues, as well as the types of obstacles they may encounter. However, if managed well, HSPs will continue to see bright career trajectories. It’s all about understanding yourself and knowing how to respond to situations in ways that work for you.

Renee has a five-step process for empowering people, including both Highly Sensitive People and women leaders more generally. She walks us through those five steps here. Learn how to incorporate the ideals of Educate, Support, Boundaries, Permission, and Prescription by tuning into our podcast. Indeed, you’ll likely find these steps to be not only doable, but also highly empowering.

This five-step process has helped Renee herself, as well as the many people she has worked with. She shares more about the long-term benefits here. By putting these steps into practice, you will see a lifetime of positive results.

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