Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It is about understanding how people are feeling, see the perspective they hold, even if it is different to your own.
It's your ability to watch a movie and feel the pain or joy that an actor is portraying. It is the reason you are moved by certain books and the challenges that the characters face. It is the ability to stand by someone and genuinely say, I hear you, I know how that feels.
With empathy, you become empowered to get a different perspective and accordingly take better decisions in your personal and professional life. You help the other person feel seen, understood and acknowledge. To feel like they matter and like they belong. If you can do that for your people, then you can truly take care of the people within your organisation.
Empathy and sympathy are often grouped together, but they are very different, as Brené Brown outlines in this video.
Imagine someone has lost a relative to a road accident. You may not have lost someone in that way, but you will know how it feels to lose someone or something you care about. You can empathise by saying, I am so sorry for your loss, I understand your grief. How can I support your right now? Empathy is an skill that can bring people together and make people feel included, while sympathy creates an uneven power dynamic and can lead to more isolation and disconnection. Sympathy is having or feeling pity for someone without understanding what it’s like to be in their situation. It sounds like, "I am sorry for your loss. I can't imagine how you are feeling. Your poor family". It is neither helpful or supportive, even though it is coming from a good place.
If a colleague is struggling with zoom fatigue, you might say, "I hear you. I understand how you feel. Tell me more." or you could say, "You're struggling? I heard that if you stand up whilst doing them it'll make you feel better. Try that". Offering advice or trying to fix the situation without permission or leading with empathy will only make people feel worse, like they are failures or not good enough to have the answers. Lead with empathy always.
Empathy is an easy concept to talk about in theory, but it takes a experience to figure out how to master it as a leader.
Leadership empathy is caring about people in your team on a human level. It's about wanting to understand what is going on in their lives, how they feel about it. It is then leading with this knowledge to create the best decisions and behaviours to support others. This is a valuable skill that you need to cultivate as a leader.
Empathetic leadership generates loyalty and drives up team performance. People like to know they are supported and cared about, it makes them feel valued. They don't want fixing, they want supporting and consideration. And when you lead with empathy, you create a connection between you and your people. When they feel you care, they care for you in return. They trust you.
Perhaps they have seen your home through a Zoom screen, or seen you get interrupted by your pet or the delivery driver. They have seen you as a human, dealing with the same challenges as them. They know that you have a distinct and separate role, and yet you are part of the team, human, just like them.
Caring for your people and team members, whether remotely or in person, requires you to create connection. Empathy builds trust, trust builds connection, connection creates relationships. You have the capability of becoming this kind of leader. It just takes a bit of courage, a dose of self awareness, and a bit of time.
Reflection
Take a few moments and objectively reflect on how you are being with the people in your organisation;
» Are you genuinely there for them or are you more focused on shareholders?
» Are you reading in between the lines or taking people at face value?
» Are you taking the time in one-to-one conversations to find out who they are and how they are doing?
» Are you listening to your own intuition?
» Are you asking yourself the question “what does my team need from me?”
Be honest with yourself. Are you more focused on what you need from your people or what your people need from you?
Compassionate leadership
Now, if empathy is challenging for you then you have a slightly alternative option. You can lead with compassion.
That is the desire and motivation to relieve suffering – it is empowering, will give you a clear sense of control and leads to sustainable action that will benefit your team. It means seeing others pain challenges and frustrations and then taking action.
Roffey Park's Compassion in the Workplace Model
Roffey Park identified some core elements that need to be present when demonstrating compassionate leadership.
BEING ALIVE TO THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS: Being sensitive to the well-being of others and noticing any change in their behaviour is one of the important attributes of a compassionate person. It enables the compassionate person to notice when others need help. Noticing someone’s suffering or struggle could be difficult particularly in workplaces where people are busy with their work or sat in a screen in a virtual meeting.
BEING NON-JUDGMENTAL: A compassionate person does not judge the sufferer and accepts and validates the person’s experience. They understand that this is just one part of a whole person and does not judge a person by one event or behaviour. When you judge, you apply the world in the frame of "I am right, you are wrong" and leads to feelings of guilt, shame and fear.
PERSONAL DISTRESS: Seeing someone else in pain, discomfort or struggle can feel overwhelming. Compassionate people can be with the distress of others, without adopting their distress. People who feel overwhelmed by another person’s distress may simply turn away and may not be able to help or take the right action.
BEING EMPATHIC: Understanding the feelings of another person is critical to compassion, but not adopting those feelings is the differentiator.
ACTION: Feeling empathic and compassionate towards someone or a group then leads to take action and do something to ease the suffering or struggle. Taking the right action, so you don't disempower or take ownership from the other person or team, but do what is within your leadership power to alleviate the pain points.
So you might see a member of the team concerned about returning to the office. You understand their concerns and do not judge them. You listen to them and ask them how you can help or support them and then take appropriate action. Perhaps you push back their return to site work, set some clear guidelines so they feel safe, change the environment or working times or get a counsellor or coach to help the transition. You will only know the appropriate action when you connect human to human, listen and co-create solutions together.
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