Leadership from the heart: heart-led financial services companies build cultures of committed employees, earn loyal customers and clients while increasing long-term profits.

• Author: Spaulding, Tommy
• Position: Cover story

THE JOURNEY TO HEART-LED LEADERSHIP covers only 18 inches--from your head to your heart--but it lasts a lifetime.

That's where I want to take you with this article--on an 18-inch journey from your head to your heart that will change your life, your financial services company and the lives of everyone around you.

In 2010, I wrote a bestselling book called "It's Not Just Who You Know," about the power and importance of building lasting, genuine relationships both personally and professionally. I've been amazed and humbled by the reaction to that book, and I've learned a great deal from the hundreds of stories readers have shared with me. The last chapter of that book ends with these words: "It's not just who you know--it's who you are."

I've come to realize there are countless dimensions to those words. The impact of "who you are" goes far beyond relationships or the ways in which you connect with people. Who you are goes to the very core of how you live and lead.

If you want to grow as a leader--if you want to make an impact at home, in your community and in your work--then nothing is more important than the journey from your head to your heart. This 18-inch journey will define and refine who you are. And if who you are is servant leader, or what I call a heart-led leader, then you, your teams, and your organization can move beyond ordinary success to success that really matters.

There are ways to make money, build businesses, and achieve goals that don't involve leading from the heart. But if that's who you are, then you're missing the real meaning of life and limiting your impact on the world.

Heart-led leadership is more sustainable, more rewarding. It leads to everything any business leader would want--higher sales, better employee engagement and less turnover, stronger teams, greater efficiencies, more innovation, consistent growth ... You name...