Biden tells HR professionals that real leadership is all about getting personal

在2025年SHRM大会现场，美国总统拜登向全球人力资源专业人士发出温暖呼吁：“真正的领导力，是走心的。”他强调，好的HR和管理者，应该关心员工的家庭和人生，而不仅仅是绩效和产出。拜登以自身经历为例，曾为女儿生日搭乘火车返家，仅为陪她吹灭蜡烛，再连夜赶回国会。他还曾明确告诉副总统团队：“如果因为我错过了重要的家庭时刻，那将令我深感失望。”在AI和效率至上的今天，拜登提醒HR，“记得员工的生日”或许比一个季度报告更重要。
他用亲情与共情定义了新时代的人力资源领导力。

By Ginger Christ — Published July 2, 2025

SAN DIEGO — Remember their birthdays. President Joe Biden told a packed room of human resources professionals on the final day of SHRM 2025 that being a great leader means getting to know workers and colleagues.

“You know better than anyone, the strength of a team comes down to the individual people on that team, whether they feel valued, whether they feel supported,” said Biden, who quipped that being the country’s chief executive is essentially being the ultimate chief people officer.

He urged the HR leaders in attendance to make time for human connections and to lead by example.

“Too often we try to separate people into categories: They’re work, or they’re family. We say it's business; it's not personal,” Biden said. “Real leadership is all about getting personal… It's about connecting. It means having empathy.”

It means remembering their birthdays, he said.

An unwritten rule during his time in office was that any member of his family would be put through immediately when they called — unless they specified that it wasn’t important.

On the day of an important vote in Congress that he couldn’t miss, Biden took the train back home to Delaware, watched his daughter blow out candles on the platform for her eighth birthday and jumped back on a train southbound to the nation’s capitol.

“We tell ourselves, ‘I have to be at that meeting, have to get that report done. I have to take that trip.’ Then, we tell ourselves, ‘My wife will understand, my kids will understand. We can make it up later,’” Biden said. “But deep down, we know we're killing ourselves. It does matter for moments you'll never get back. You might never know how much it mattered to your loved one.”

Efforts like that, or commuting two hours home every day showed his staff that he wanted them to put their life, their family first, he said.

After becoming vice president, Biden sent a memo to his team that said:

“I do not want you to miss important family obligations for work. These include, but are not limited to birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, religious ceremonies, graduations, times of need, such as illness and loss. This is very important to me. In fact, I'll go so far as I say, ‘If I find out you are working with me while missing an important family responsibility, it will disappoint me greatly.’”

Workers will give their all, he said, when they know you care not just about them but about their families, too.