Leading With Empathy When People Are The Product

For years, many leaders treated empathy as a nice to have, something that belonged in personal relationships but not in serious business. What mattered at work was performance, efficiency, and results. If people were struggling, the thinking went, they would figure it out or move on.

That mindset is breaking.

Research on workplace culture continues to show that empathy is one of the strongest drivers of engagement, innovation, and loyalty. At the same time, hybrid work, constant change, and rising stress levels make it impossible to lead well without understanding what people are carrying into the room.

On this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Teresa Johnson, CEO of Color Me Mine, the industry leading paint your own pottery franchise. Teresa’s journey from HR and marketing leader, to studio customer, to multi studio owner, to CEO is a case study in how empathy can move from personality trait to leadership system. She leads a network of more than one hundred and fifty studios that are not just selling pottery, but hosting memories, creativity, and connection for families and communities.

Empathy Is Simple, Not Soft

Teresa starts with a very grounded definition. Empathy, in her view, is the ability to understand and appreciate someone else’s experience or perspective, without needing to agree with it or take it on as your own. It is simple, common sense, and incredibly powerful when practiced consistently.

She has watched a lack of empathy end careers. One story stands out. A friend who loved his job and company lost his brother. When his manager finally called, the first question was about work, not his loss. There was no “How are you doing” or “How is your family.” That two minute call ended his relationship with the company.

Moments like that are not about policies or strategy. They are about whether people feel seen as humans. Teresa’s point is clear. Empathy is not a soft extra. It is often the difference between loyalty and quiet resignation.

Listening As A Daily Leadership Practice

A leader who wants to be more empathetic does not need a complicated toolkit. Teresa’s starting point is listening with intention.

Instead of “How are you” in passing, she reaches for open questions such as:

• What is on your plate this week at work

• What are you looking forward to

• What are you doing this weekend

People reveal what matters to them in simple answers. A mention of a child’s softball game becomes the follow up the next week. “How did she do” signals that you were listening and that you care.

She also leans on one very simple phrase: “Tell me more.”

It keeps conversations open, invites people to share what is really going on, and shifts the focus away from the leader’s next response toward genuine understanding. None of this takes a lot of time, but it does require intention. You have to decide that connection belongs on your to do list.

Turning Empathy Into Systems

Empathy becomes powerful in an organization when it moves from isolated acts to shared systems. Color Me Mine is not a transactional retail brand. It is an experience based business. People come to the studios to relax, connect, and create. That experience has to be teachable, repeatable, and scalable.

To make that real, Teresa and her team built:

• The Color Me Mine Way, thirty simple values and behaviors that help owners teach empathy, hospitality, and care to part time staff, many of whom are in their first job

• A ten touch customer journey, outlining how staff welcome guests, guide them through picking pottery and paints, help them get started, and celebrate their finished pieces when they return for pickup

These systems make empathy concrete. A seven year old who comes back to pick up a glazed piggy bank does not just receive a wrapped item. A staff member looks them in the eye and says, “Look what you did, it is amazing.” That moment becomes part of the child’s memory, and it happens because someone designed for it, not because a few employees happen to be naturally warm.

The same pattern applies to franchise support. Regular brand calls, monthly town halls, and weekly one to one check ins with new owners during build out are not just operational checkpoints. They are empathy built into the calendar, especially for first time entrepreneurs who are excited, stressed, and learning all at once.

Empathy As A Diagnostic Tool

In any franchise system, some locations thrive and others struggle. Teresa refuses to diagnose performance by looking at numbers alone. The data tells her what is happening. Empathy helps her uncover why.

When a studio underperforms, she starts with questions, not blame.

Is there a personal crisis or family stress
Is the owner overwhelmed or burned out
Has something shifted in their life that the numbers cannot show

Only when she understands the human story does she build a plan that includes coaching, training, marketing support, or structural changes. In her words, “We can solve anything we can understand.”

Empathy, in this context, is not a way to avoid accountability. It is a way to make accountability honest. You cannot ask people to hit targets if you are unwilling to hear what is making that target harder to reach.

Purpose As Dream Management

Underneath Teresa’s leadership is a clear personal purpose. She sees herself as a dream manager. Her deepest motivation is to help other people live their dreams, whether they are part time employees, franchisees, or customers.

One of her favorite stories involves a seventeen year old who started as a part time employee in her original studio. After three months, the young woman wanted to quit, convinced that she was not leadership material. Teresa saw something in her that she did not yet see in herself and refused to let her walk away. Years later, that same woman texted her as a high school principal, crediting those early experiences for her confidence and leadership skills.

That is what purpose looks like in practice. It is not an abstract sentence on the wall. It is a habit of believing in people before they fully believe in themselves and creating opportunities for them to grow into larger roles, whether they stay in the company or carry those skills into the wider world.

Love As A Leadership Verb

Love is not a word many leaders are comfortable using at work. Teresa is.

For her, love in leadership is not sentiment. It is consistency of presence. It looks like:

• Handwritten birthday cards and notes during major life events

• Personal calls during loss or crisis, without an agenda

• Honest feedback about performance, expectations, and growth

She is clear that avoiding difficult conversations is not kindness. Clarity is a form of care. Empathy and accountability are not opposites. You can be both supportive and direct when performance is off track.

Her view of love also extends to franchisees and guests. For owners, love looks like partnership, shared problem solving, and reminding them that they are not alone. For guests, it is about hospitality and creating a “happy place” in their communities, a studio where people can escape the weight of the world for a few hours and create something they will keep for years.

Some of the most powerful evidence of that impact has come in moments of loss. After wildfires in California, customers sent photos of pottery pieces that survived when homes did not. Fired in a kiln, those pieces withstood the flames and became symbols of resilience and memory. That is what it means for a brand to occupy emotional space in people’s lives.

Key Takeaways

• Empathy Is A Discipline, Not A Personality Type
  It starts with listening, open questions, and the decision to care about what people are carrying, not just what they are producing.

• Small Moments Have Outsized Impact
  A single phone call, note, or hallway conversation can cement loyalty or end a relationship. Leaders ignore this at their peril.

• Systems Can Carry Empathy At Scale
  Clear values, customer journeys, and communication rhythms make it possible to deliver consistent, human experiences across large teams and networks.

• Diagnostic Empathy Improves Performance
  Starting with “why” when numbers dip allows leaders to address root causes instead of treating people like broken parts of a machine.

• Purpose Keeps Empathy Sustainable
  When your deeper why is to help people grow and live their dreams, empathy becomes second nature, not an extra task.

• Love Belongs In Leadership
  Love expressed as presence, honesty, partnership, and hospitality creates cultures that people want to stay in, not escape from.

Final Thoughts

Empathy is often described as a soft skill, but in practice it is one of the most practical tools a leader can develop. It shapes how you listen, how you design systems, how you diagnose problems, and how you define success.

Teresa Johnson’s leadership at Color Me Mine is a reminder that when you build businesses around empathy, purpose, and love, you do not dilute performance. You deepen it. People feel safe enough to bring their whole selves to work, and that energy shows up in every customer interaction, franchise relationship, and long term result.

Check out our full conversation with Teresa Johnson on The Bliss Business Podcast.