EMPATHY DRIVEN LEADERSHIP
EMPATHY WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS IS EASY
Empathy in life with your friend or a family member is so easy right, because we know them well we feel for them you genuinely care about people you know who are in your life. So you definitely have more connection more rapport with them immediately. However, empathy overall when it comes at work and as a leader is truly one of the most important qualities. When you think about it any organization especially a work culture,
when we fill up those forms,
when we do those surveys,
when we have managers ask questions,
when we look at the mission statement of a company,
WORK CULTURE
The first thing when we think about joining or being in any organization is,
“Does this really fit my ideology?”
“Does this fit exactly what I believe in myself?”
“Could I contribute to this company?”
“Do I have passion for this company?”
These are all emotions however as a leader, when you are working in an organization the number one quality, besides the understood skill set and working with people, and knowing how to be with people of course is a given right it's a given skill set requirements I think it's empathy.
TWO TEAMS WITH OPPOSITE SITUATIONS
To illustrate an example I can just mention one of the instances I personally saw with departments. When I worked, I could see a clear difference between these two departments, that I was supporting with their training requirements. However, there was a blaring difference. One of the departments, I saw was full of energy enthusiastic they worked well as a team and they seemed to be thriving. The other department I was trying to work with was low on energy they were almost demotivated, they were doing quite well professionally in their job but from an energy and the attitude and just an overall sense of it, if you looked at them they looked miserable.
It was really bothering me because at this stage when I was working with both these teams I was thinking, “What is that differentiating factor that makes this team so energetic?” They were team of the quarter they were doing extremely well, everybody enjoyed working with them. They were getting all these glory and highlights whereas, this other team, even though they were talented people were not happy.
“What is that factor that deciding factor that differentiate?”
These teams I pondered about this question, for a very long time. I was working with both the teams and I started asking questions, so I asked,
“What makes you motivated to work?”
“What makes you happy?”
“What are your highlights?”
Whatever questions I asked the team that was thriving and energetic and doing very well the number one statement that they said to me was,
We are very happy,
we love our boss, and
we love working in this team,
we feel energized
we love our projects
our boss listens to us
our boss understands us and gives us time off when we need
we feel even more energized, when we come to work because of that
The other team that was struggling and miserable and didn't look happy I asked them, what motivated them to come to work, what made them happy, and consistently throughout there they kept saying, “Well, it works fine we enjoy it it's okay…”Their attitude was almost disinterested. I always do this because especially being in training or in HR you want to make sure that you gain trust of teams.
So I used to always culturally say listen whatever I ask you stays in the room, it's not going to be something I'm going to go back and use against you or mention anybody's name. That's not my belief, I just want to get a sense of how things are going for you guys and this was just a general discussion. That we were having besides the training that I was talking about just to get an idea of how things work so in a general discussion.
BAD MANAGEMENT
I got an idea and then they started telling me their concerns they were overworked the manager never checked on them they didn't have the meetings the projection was being made that they were getting one-to-one discussions with their manager but the manager honestly didn't care did not invest any time on them.
EMPATHY MYTH - CONSIDERED NOT BEING STRONG
When you work with your team and you become flexible to their needs, and their requirements and you try to understand where they are with their problems. They start respecting you and they start giving back more, because they start feeling that their managers go out of the way for them. If a manager is taking time for their team, they are listening to what the team has to say, so they want to respect and give them back.
Empathy has it is the most powerful tool, you will ever have another misconception people have especially managers and leaders. If a manager is empathetic, people think or he or she must be soft, but dont take it seriously. They're not going to respect enough, this is a myth. I really believe and have seen in my working experience that the empathetic boss you might actually win the hearts and trust of their people.
SHOW FLEXIBILITY
Sometimes employees deal with personal issues or problems and I have seen managers get impatient and go straight to hr and itime and time again they think its the HR job to solve that issue. However, from experience I always advise managers that do not make this a habit. They are giving the message to your employee that they are a problem, when they contact HR, they should be involved. Only if necessary, if there's something of a crisis if the manager is not able to find a solution definitely go to the HR. But if you keep sending the employees to HR you're giving the message to employee that you don't really care.
In conclusion, an empathetic leader remember is about caring about others caring about what happens with your team good or bad and try to listen to them more. Then be there for them and hopefully you will see how that in the long term your team comes back and gives you 100 right back because you invested in. That truly is one of the best qualities of being an empathetic leader.
