KIGOMA – DECEMBER 22: Jane Goodall appears in the television special “Miss Goodall and the World of Chimpanzees” originally broadcast on CBS, Wednesday, December 22, 1965. Location, Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
CBS via Getty Images
The world lost a legend as Dame Jane Goodall passed away at age 91. Her death marks the culmination of a life that rewrote humanity’s place in nature. But it was her life that we can all learn from, offering a wake-up call of sorts for business leaders to follow in her footsteps in three distinct ways: by embedding empathy, practicing humility, and committing to a long-term vision.
Born in London, Jane had a childhood fascination with animals. It was this passion that would become her life’s work. With no formal scientific credentials, she traveled to Tanzania in 1960 under the mentorship of anthropologist Louis Leakey and began observing chimpanzees in the wild at the Gombe Stream. For almost two decades, she observed and documented behaviors that challenged the foundations of scientific thoughts around chimpanzees’ intelligence – they used tools, went on the hunt for meat, and had individualized personalities that they used to form emotional bonds.
She would go on to create the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, becoming a global ambassador and icon for animal conservation and climate action, with the hope and conviction that even small acts of kindness could have a ripple effect, ultimately leading to change.
Today, business leaders can learn from her by following these three lessons as a simple blueprint for honoring her legacy.
1. Empathy First
One of Goodall’s most notable and transformative acts was to give chimpanzees names instead of assigning them numbers. She insisted each primate had its own relationships and emotions with others. By recognizing that they possessed inner lives, she compelled others in her space, and eventually the public at large, to view animals not as data or numbers, but as relatable subjects of concern.
In business, many leaders do the same. As enterprises scale, it’s easy to treat employees, customers, and partners as metrics or line items – not individuals. But empathy first demands the opposite: seeing people as complicated, feeling beings. That means listening more than measuring, creating environments for vulnerability, and designing a culture that responds humanely to stress, failure, and inequity. When leaders adopt empathy as a strategy, they not only inspire loyalty — it is that psychological safety that leads to increased creativity through trust and resilience.
MAGDEBURG, Germany: Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost authority on chimpanzees, communicates with chimpanzee Nana, 06 June 2004 at the zoo of Magdeburg (eastern Germany). The British primatologist began her pioneering study of chimpanzees more than 40 years ago in Tanzania. AFP PHOTO DDP/JENS SCHLUETER GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read JENS SCHLUETER/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)
DDP/AFP via Getty Images
2. Patience and Long Term Thinking
Goodall’s research experiments spanned decades, required painstaking observation, and close relationship-building. Her work succeeded because she refused to take shortcuts.
In today’s world of quarterly reporting and KPI pressure, short cycles are real. But solutions to complex problems require patience and long-term thinking. Goodall’s method involves resisting instant gratification and honoring slow variables before rendering a judgment. When a leader is willing to invest time, people may surprise you with their untapped potential.
3. Humility
Goodall’s approach consistently emphasized humility, always seeing herself as a student.
In business, insights necessary for innovation may not lie in boardrooms or focus groups but with frontline employees, the youngest hires, or underserved customers. Humble leaders invite dissent, ask uncomfortable questions, and are willing to debate their decisions or even have them overturned. Seeking understanding over dominance and potentially unlocking new pathways for adaptation and growth.
Jane Goodall taught a generation that the artificial boundaries we create between “us” and “them” is narrower than we believe.
TOPSHOT – British ethologist and primatologist Jane Goodall poses with her mascott “Mister H” during a photo session on October 18, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP) (Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Now that she is gone, business leaders have a choice: revere her memory with elegance, or honor it as a blueprint. To truly honor Jane Goodall’s legacy, leaders must do more than nod to conservation or issue statements about purpose — they must adopt her empathy as a strategic lever, embed patience into their rhythms, and listen to the margins even when it unsettles their certainty.
In a world with accelerating complexity, the most significant competitiveness may not come from scale, speed, or capital — but from our capacity to see, care, and lead with moral imagination. That is the lesson Jane Goodall offered the world, and it is one business leaders should consider in these times.
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