EMPATHY 

A lot of my clients’ first sessions start with them saying “I don’t need any of that touchy-feely stuff, I just want to get the work done”.  Well, empathy definitely falls into the often-disdained area of soft skills, but let me tell you why it’s important.

What it is:

According to Webster, empathy is: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this.”

OK, that’s a mouthful but you can’t get more touchy-feely than that.  To simplify – empathy is seeing things through the other person’s lens. To be empathetic you must understand and experience their feelings.  Who wants to make time for that? I suggest you do should you want to be successful.  We do not work or live in a vacuum (even in the age of COVID19).  As humans, things happen that affect our performance.  Good things, bad things, weird things.  If you are not able to understand what your employee is experiencing, how can you gauge how to get the best out of them?

For example, suppose you manage the local Animal Shelter.  Suffice it to say that most of the staff have a huge attachment to animals in general and especially to their own pets.  One of your call takers comes to work after having lost a beloved pet, If you’re not empathetic to their feelings, you may only see them as an employee and probably expect them to deal with their emotions on their own time.

If, on the other hand, you understand what they may be experiencing, you adjust to the situation. You realize that they may be faced with working with partons who have deceased animals and assign other duties for the day.

Empathy is the ability to understand how emotions affect someone.

What it is not:

Don’t misunderstand, empathy does not mean accepting poor performance and bad attitudes simply because someone is out of sorts.  As the manager, it is still your responsibility to “get the work done”.  You have a right (and a duty) to call people on their performance and to take measures to make sure it is up to your standards.  Maybe that employee that just lost a pet needs a different set of duties for the day.  If that’s not possible, maybe they don’t need to be at work at all.   But it doesn’t mean they can be short-tempered to others or not perform the job. That’s where you must do your job and decide what’s best for the organization.  The ability to empathize can help you decide on the correct course of action.

More importantly, empathy is not sympathy.  Empathy asks you to understand what the other person is feeling, not to take them as your own.   It is the difference between helping someone out of a hole vs. being in the hole with them.  As a manager, your job is to help them out of the hole, not get stuck in it with them.

How to Become an Empathetic Manager

So how does a manager go about developing empathy? Become aware.  Take the time to develop quality relationships with your people and you will begin to see and hear what they need from you.  At the same time, don’t be afraid to ask.  They will tell you. When they do, believe them and do your best to give them what they need.  In addition to becoming more aware of your staff, work hard at understanding yourself.  Do a basic gut check to see if you’re helping someone out of the hole or if you’re standing beside them. Adjust accordingly.

To learn how to bring empathy to your workplace, check out our services here.

Uncontrolled emotion is the problem:

How managers handle emotion can be a huge problem in the workplace. Authors Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, use the idea of emotional intelligence to help us act like adults when we really want to throw a tantrum. Using four areas of competence, the authors break down the process of understanding and improving ourselves in a way that’s easy to understand and practice.  The areas are: (1) Self-Awareness, (2) Self-Management, (3) Social Awareness and (4) Relationship Management. if your managers are proficient in these areas they will be way ahead of the curve.

Question: Why is maturity difficult for managers to master?

The problem often surfaces when an employee steps on the first rung of the “management” ladder.  At some point, the company sends the newbie through it’s in-house training program. The attempt to prepare newly minted managers rarely include the soft skills necessary to navigate the emotional-filled human waters.   In fact, many programs only concentrate on hard skills designed to teach  how to get the work done but not how to get people to do it.  Learning the company’s accounting processes is great but managers also need to master skills  such as emotional readiness, effective communication and how to give and receive feedback. Unfortunately, these skills are often taught as the result of some managerial misdeed or employee complaint, and usually at the suggestion of HR. Depending on the severity of the situation, it can be too late at that point.

Answer: Self-Awareness is the key!

So how can you  make sure that your managers  are emotionally ready to move up the ladder? It’s really not that hard. Look at the four areas of competence outlined above, see where you stand, and take action to improve. For instance:

• Work on becoming more self-aware. After you experience an emotional reaction to a situation, take time to put a name to the emotion.  Was it anger or disappointment?  Consciously think about how it affected you, both physically and psychologically. Did your heart-rate increase? Are you depressed or excited? In short, take the time to find out what happened and then find ways to address it. With practice you should eventually be able to do this in the moment. When you can readjust as things are happening your emotional intelligence will begin to grow.
• Assess yourself
  • Take the assessment in the Bradberry and Greaves book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0^(1). not only will you be able to get a sense of where you are emotionally, the book includes helpful strategies for improvement that you can measure by retaking the assessment at a later date.
  • Online assessments are also available that measure different aspects of emotional intelligence. Some seem pretty substantial while others have quizzes like the fun ones you might find on some social media sights.  Regardless of what assessment you use knowing something is better than not having a clue.  Go play.
• Log your emotions for awhile and look for patterns. Use a simple spreadsheet and include things such as:
  • Who caused the emotion
  • When it happened
  • What was the topic
  • What was the emotion (name it)
  • How you either heightened (if good) or diminished (if bad) the emotion

Leaders are chosen for their ability to make good decisions.  Why not start with deciding to be the best leader you possibly can?

⁽¹⁾ Bradberry, T. and Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional Intelligence. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart®