Empathy is an unenforceable requirement for leaders, and the consequences are high for a leader who does not embrace and develops it. Ignoring empathy can result in negative consequences, including a toxic work environment, low morals, high turnover and burnout. For leaders, this can result in connection failures, inability to collect information or be perceived as inaccessible.
Choosing to ignore empathy may seem like an efficient shortcut, but when it comes to solving problems and building engagement, research tells us that empathy is essential for effective connection, communication and collaboration in the workplace.
A recent systematic literature review of 42 studies found that organizations with empathic leaders have had greater employee engagement and a reduction in personnel turnover.
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Especially in times of uncertainty and crisis, empathy is crucial to leading and protecting organizations. Nevertheless, leaders still have difficulty understanding what it is (and what is not) empathy and how to practice it. Here are six strategies that leaders can use to hit work empathy.
Develop an empathy protocol
Create a shared understanding of empathy for your organization or team – what it is, how it adds value and how it will be expressed in terms of behavior in your environment. Discuss what empathy means in its particular context and how it can support the culture you are creating. Identify how empathy will be expressed in behaviors. Define as empathy, performance standards and responsibility work together. Commit to empathy between you.
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Be focused on the other
Many of us have already experienced a leader (or conversation partner) who addresses a concern anchoring it in his own experience. This type of reaction often does not achieve the desired result. Here, empathy in action is more about being than doing.
Be a container
Be a time box, space and listening so that someone can share their truth safely and recognize, articulate and process their experience without judgment. Allow them to fill the container on their own.
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Be a listener
Define one intention: “I will be aware and present and hear without judgment.” Determine what you need to do to be aware and present.
Be a questioner
Empathetic leaders show interest in others and ask questions. Open questions that seek perspectives facilitate our thinking and increase mutual understanding. Extending empathy requires one focus on the other: creating and maintaining space for others, being present, being calm and curious.
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Balances individual and team need
When leaders focus too much on individual’s emotional experiences, they risk setting aside broader organizational issues such as team performance and strategic decision making. To avoid being carried away by emotion and investing their resources in the individual over the team, try the following:
Connect to several perspectives to collect information. Taking perspectives is about collecting information to understand what is true for someone without feeling their emotions. This helps reveal what is important to them, such as values, goals and schedule, facilitates the signaling of solutions and shows that you have devoted time to understanding their perspective, even if you do not agree or feel the same way.
Use your empathy protocol. Discuss with your colleague or team – maintaining the individual’s confidentiality – how you can use your empathy protocol to provide support. From the beginning, increase awareness of how a problem can affect them, then get their opinion to co-create solutions. Demonstrating empathy as a leader does not mean that you have to feel the emotions of others, but to better understand what is happening to them, collecting important information for individual and collective decisions, so that both can succeed.
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Facilitate support instead of assuming control. If someone is resisting, it is tempting to try to solve their problems. The next time an employee needs support, ask: What is happening? What kind of support is it necessary – from them, from the team, of you? Who can provide support? How can I facilitate this support?
Model the definition of boundaries. Leaders face endless demands that require empathy: build partnerships, support employee health, demonstrate sensitivity and compassion, inspire and motivate, create growth and more. A heavy investment in the emotions of others can result in overload, burnout, impaired decision -making, reduced efficacy, or even what research calls empathic stress: “The desire to move away from a situation to protect from excessive negative feelings.” Establishing healthy limits is often hampered by guilt, desire to please or fear of conflict, leading to excessive impairment and unin -clear personal boundaries. Therefore:
Know your limits and protect your energy. What three limits do you want or need now? Why are they important to you? Identify what needs to be implemented.
Modele Balance and Limits. Model Healthy Behaviors: Balance between personal and professional life, self -care, pauses, vacation, digital detox, emotional regulation and stress management. Encourage others to do the same. Manage relationships, unsatisfactory performance and interpersonal conflicts promptly to reduce climbing and larger investment.
Update your language to connect. When someone talks about your feelings or experiences, especially if they are negative, it is tempting to try to improve things using phrases like: “I know exactly how you feel”, “everything will be fine” or “you will be fine.” The problem is that we cannot know exactly how someone else feels or predicted precisely that things will be fine. Instead:
Validate and explore. Listen to the experiences and feelings of others without judging or invalidating them with “this is nothing!” Instead, he validates, “It seems that you are feeling frustrated that you have not gotten that promotion” or “I’m sorry you are feeling so anxious about this presentation.” Being a witness without judgment is a support in itself.
Build connection. Replace scoring but well-meaning phrases with a language that builds a connection: “I hear how anxious you are about giving this presentation. I understand.” “It seems that you are feeling disappointed that you have not achieved that promotion. Tell me more.” “I’m here if you want to talk.”
Have a perspective interested. Be open and interested in finding out how it is and how someone’s truth sounds. A challenge in the practice of empathy is believing in someone’s perspective when it does not correspond to yours.
Empathy, particularly when focused on understanding perspectives, is an important component of effective leadership and, like any other ability, requires practice. Of course, there may be people or contexts where empathy can have negative effects, so it is important to start with an understanding of what is empathy and how it manifests itself in your specific workplace. Enjoying empathy is not enough: empathy in action is practiced through the questions we ask, the listening we fulfill, and the quality of the attention we give to raise people and the performance. It is non -negotiable.
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