Like many people, I’ve had great bosses — and some not-so-great ones.
But there’s one who stands out. Let’s call him Boss X. To this day, when I think about what good leadership looks like, his example comes to mind. He didn’t just manage people; he understood them. And that made all the difference.
When I first started working with Boss X, life outside of work was a whirlwind. My wife and I had two little ones — ages 4 and 2 — and our home was still under construction. We were living in my parents’ basement, trying to stretch every dollar while raising toddlers and holding onto a semblance of sanity.
Dinner was often a blur, sleep was optional, and treats like a white-chocolate brownie from Moxie’s felt like distant luxuries.
In that chapter of my life, balance wasn’t just hard — it felt impossible. And yet, every time I had to ask for a little flexibility — to leave early for a sick child, to handle a daycare call, or to catch my breath — Boss X’s answer was almost always the same:
“Michel, no problem.”
He didn’t sigh. He didn’t make me feel like I was imposing. He didn’t remind me of the deadlines I was juggling. He just said, “No problem.”
Those two words carried weight. They said, I see you. They said, I trust you.
And in those moments, I learned one of the most important lessons of my professional life: empathy in leadership is not weakness. It’s strength.
Boss X’s empathy didn’t make me complacent. It made me grateful.
And from that gratitude came an almost instinctive desire to give back. I worked harder, stayed later when I could, and took pride in delivering excellence because I wanted to reciprocate the trust he placed in me.
There’s a reason people say, “Choose your boss, not your job.”
I didn’t stay because of the work itself — I stayed because I felt valued as a person, not just as an employee.
That’s the paradox of trust and flexibility: the more you give, the less it’s abused.
Companies with unlimited vacation policies have discovered the same truth. When people feel trusted to manage their own time, they rarely exploit it. Gratitude becomes the invisible motivator.
Empathy doesn’t just create compliance. It creates commitment.
Boss X’s leadership style rippled beyond our one-on-one interactions. His empathy shaped the culture of the entire team.
When leaders model understanding, they give everyone else permission to do the same. Deadlines were still met, accountability was still enforced, but there was a human pulse behind it all. We checked in on each other not because HR said to, but because it had become part of who we were as a team.
It’s the same spirit that fuels my work today in workplace investigations and assessments. These processes can often feel clinical or adversarial. But at their core, they’re about people. Real people, trying to be seen, heard, and treated fairly.
I founded Nungisa Law on that principle — to humanize your interaction with all things legal. Because behind every complaint, every allegation, every policy breach, there’s a human story that deserves to be understood before it’s judged.
Empathy isn’t the opposite of rigour. It’s the bridge between fairness and compassion.
It’s easy to mistake empathy for leniency. But Boss X wasn’t soft. He had high standards and expected results. And for some reason, he came to me to handle some of the most complex files he needed to assign. He just understood that excellence and empathy aren’t competing priorities — they’re complementary ones.
When an employee feels understood, performance follows.
Boss X didn’t lower expectations when I was struggling. Instead, he helped me rise to meet them. His “no problem” wasn’t permission to disengage; it was confidence that I could handle both work and life.
That’s the secret few talk about: empathy doesn’t lower the bar. It raises it. How? By unlocking motivation that fear never could.
Years later, when I began conducting workplace investigations and assessments, I realized how profoundly that experience shaped my approach.
Every interview I conduct, every finding I draft, every recommendation I make — all of it is grounded in the same lesson Boss X taught me: be human first.
When someone comes forward with a complaint, they’re often doing so from a place of vulnerability, anxiety, frustration, fear of reprisal. A trauma-informed or culturally attuned approach isn’t just a best practice; it’s a moral one.
Investigators and assessors hold people’s stories in their hands. We ask hard questions, yes, but we do so with care. Because the goal isn’t just to find the truth: it’s to do so in a way that preserves dignity.
That human touch is what turns an otherwise bureaucratic process into an exercise in fairness and restoration.
Managers who want to get the best out of their teams can learn a lot from the “Boss X” approach. It doesn’t require elaborate programs or endless meetings. Just intention and care.
Here are three takeaways that have stayed with me:
At the heart of great leadership isn’t authority. It’s connection.
There’s a fable about the North Wind and the Sun competing to see who could make a traveler remove his coat. The wind blew fiercely, but the traveler only clutched his coat tighter. The sun, by shining warmly, succeeded with ease.
That’s what good leadership does.
You can push, demand, or pressure people into compliance. Or you can inspire them into excellence through warmth, understanding, and trust.
Boss X chose the sun. And because of that, I did too.
Looking back, I see that my work in workplace investigations and assessments isn’t just about resolving conflict or ensuring compliance. It’s about something deeper — restoring humanity in places where it’s been lost or forgotten.
Empathy built me as an employee. Now, it guides me as an investigator, lawyer, and leader.