We live, we love, we strive

There are many organisations that seek leaders who show empathy, and even leaders use this word often, like a buzzword attached to the string of “inspirations” to be conveyed. There are tons of articles and videos of the same, and this one by Forbes is particularly interesting, where it mentioned:

“You always knew demonstrating empathy is positive for people, but new research demonstrates its importance for everything from innovation to retention. Great leadership requires a fine mix of all kinds of skills to create the conditions for engagement, happiness and performance, and empathy tops the list of what leaders must get right.”

As always, I also did a quick search with Google to see what it pops up:

“Empathetic leadership means having the ability to understand the needs of others, and being aware of their feelings and thoughts. Unfortunately, it has long been a soft skill that’s overlooked as a performance indicator.”

Surprisingly, even Google mentioned that it has been overlooked.

Now let’s digress a bit here – I have always seen myself as being empathetic, to a point where I want to carry out my superior’s mentioned goals, and to balance with the needs of customers and other team members. But this has not been working well for me much career wise. That is, I often get my way with the customers and internal team members, but not to my superiors. Of course, if numbers are good, all’s well. But not so much when numbers are not fast enough.

I came across this article by Julien Milner and it totally resonates when it comes to this soft skill that has been a huge challenge to pick up.

And as always, I leaned towards Simon Sinek’s work and really enjoyed how Simon Sinek discussed this topic – We can swing too far on each end and we end up either with a lack of accountability or one that is without trust and constantly pressurised to produce.

I recently picked up a book by David Brooks, titled “How to Know a Person“, and one of the chapters discuss “The Art of Empathy”.

David Brooks referenced Baron-Cohen’s work on 7 levels of empathy and indeed, I agree most of us have a certain degree of empathy, commonly ranked as 4s on the scale. On the higher levels, also known as high empaths, they feel everything, enjoy deep relationships and are more generous. They can however take in too much from external, being “extremely sensitive to any emotional input”.

Given the lack of knowledge on exercising empathy, what are some suggestions to tune up on empathy?

Again, David Brooks suggested the following:

• Contact Theory – Bring people together, especially those in hostile groups. This builds a common goal and community with shared focus, and often results in increased empathy in the group
• Visualise with Eyes Closed – Closely observe the people around, get them involved or even go into drama plays to wider perspectives
• Reading Literature – People who read are more empathetic, especially those who read biographies or character-driven novels because one gets to experience the changing emotional life of the character.
• Spot Emotions – Categorise emotions based on pleasantness and energy (high energy, high pleasantness; low energy, high pleasantness; high energy, low pleasantness; low energy, low pleasantness). This provides the “permission to feel”, acknowledge and investigate them using the acronym of RULER: Recognise, Understand, Label, Express and Regulate.
• Suffering – Lastly, some people have been there, done that and they simply understand. To be more empathetic, these are the people who has lived and endured hard times but not broken, and did not put a high wall of defence. They maintain connectedness and use their own story to understand that of others.

Organisations often have a bottom-line to generate returns for their shareholders. It is fundamentally the reason why companies exist – to drive economic growth. However, when we hire leaders and managers, it is important to capture what they see, hear or feel on the ground, and to help them build resilience for them and the team. This is where HR can potentially provide stronger input, less on abiding to what only managers want – performance or results.

I also believe all leaders and managers of teams have a choice at any moment in time, whether to practise empathy and approach a situation with genuine concern, or that of blame and threats.

Showing empathy is not weak, nor hard to do. Leaders and managers who claimed it is weak or hard to do, are either estranged in their own gains, to look good and to climb the ladder, or they have been pushed back hard by management. It is very common that senior management wants to look good in front of all employees and others, and leave the bad impressions and deeds to be carried out by those beneath them.

Employees need to also show their appreciation, by sharing what is on their mind, what help/support is needed. Of course, this relates back to the level of trust, and this goes both ways. In my experience, one party has to give-in first in a relationship. Nothing good comes when both parties have their own ideals or perspectives.