Developing Empathy in the Workplace
Empathy is one of the five aspects of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). When applied properly, empathy shows others that you care about them as people and can see beyond any immediate business issues.
Executives who lack empathy severely impede their own progress and ability to make deeper connections at work. Sadly, they often don’t see their own blindspots and are left flailing in the corner while others whisper behind their backs.
Empathy blindspots
Everyone has a few blindspots, but for managers they can be particularly damaging and hard to uncover. It takes a brave employee to give their boss honest feedback, especially when tensions are high or business is not going well.
If you or your boss lacks empathy, it can be even harder to have these conversations in a productive way that feels supportive.
Empathy is multidimensional and there are several levels to consider. Each dimension is learnable and improvable and yet, can also be overused.
Self-empathy
Self-compassion, or self-empathy, is the ability to be patient and constructive with your own growth and development process. Are you extremely hard on yourself? Or are you too easy on yourself? Ideally, you want to strike a balance: You need the right amount of grit and determination to grow and improve, but not so much that you burn out on frustration or lower your self-esteem.
Empathy for your direct report
Every boss has their own leadership style and we’ve all seen a few who lack empathy for their employees. For example, a command and control style boss who always piles on more work than can be accomplished and only gives corrective feedback rather than positive strokes.
We also have seen bosses who are too empathetic and allow their employees to get away with anything they like. This might look like a department full of inefficient workers taking too long to get subpar results.
Again, it’s a balancing act, but most of the time, leaders need to make the extra effort to develop more empathy for their staff.
To do this, start by finding out what they are genuinely wrestling with. Partner with them on solving their biggest problems. When things go poorly, ask questions and seek understanding before you launch into corrective measures. You never know what personal issues or circumstances might be happening in your employee’s life at this moment; the empathetic manager takes time to listen carefully. Leaders who demonstrate empathy can bring invisible power to an organization.
Empathy for your boss
It sounds like a strange idea. But your boss (even if it is a board or large group of shareholders), likely has a lot of pressure on them, too. They are wrestling with not knowing the details of the work that is done at lower levels of the organization, and yet still trying to provide the vision and strategy for the business.
If your boss has several direct reports, they are keeping track of a lot of different perspectives in addition to yours. Often employees come rushing in and overload their manager with too many details or bury the lead story, and the boss is left confused and frustrated. When the boss is providing feedback, it can often be taken personally, but the boss may simply be trying to improve performance. The first step in developing more empathy for your boss (and vice versa) is to improve your relationship in general.
Empathy for your colleagues
While you might be busy trying to out-compete your colleagues or peers, you should also try to understand the world from their perspective.
To develop a bit more empathy, start with a few question trying to consider your colleagues’ perspectives:
What’s truly important to them in their department?
What are their career goals?
What’s keeping them up at night?
What’s their favorite communication style?
Warning: Sometimes when you’re working with senior managers and directors, there will be a decent amount of gossip and one-upmanship (it can even look quite passive or harmless, but be warned). While competition can be healthy, taking it to a backstabbing level shows a lack of empathy in all directions.
A little empathy goes a long way
Here’s a true story to help illustrate the importance of empathy in the workplace. A Marketing Director client of mine was working in a fast-paced startup that was having trouble getting their new software product out the door. The CEO decided to bring in a bright young star to help lead the charge and “shake up the place.”
No one liked the kid. He was arrogant, demeaning, and dismissive. I suspected that he was also pretty insecure. My client was feeling a lot of anxiety about the situation and feared that his own role would diminish in the eyes of the CEO next to this bright star. He was quick to be hyper-critical of the new hire.
“This will never work!” he cried.
I asked him what it would look like if he bent over backward to make the new guy comfortable and be his ally in helping the CEO with the delayed software product. After some discussion, he decided that he was also reacting from his own insecurity and accepted the idea of reaching out to the new rising star.
A few months later, my client was the true star and also had a new friend. The company was still failing to get the software product shipped because the rest of the staff had rejected this newcomer’s brash approach. Eventually, “the kid” left the company out of frustration, but my client has learned how to be more empathetic and also demonstrated to others a sea change that is possible when working collaboratively.
Most of the time, when people are acting out, being rude or anxious, they are battling something inside. A little empathy and olive branch can go a long way as they are the last to expect it.
Developing the right amount of empathy
As a key component of emotional intelligence, empathy can help you make your emotions work for you, instead of against you.
If you want to improve your empathy as a leader, here are a few ways to become more aware of your employees’ and team members’ perspectives:
1. Put yourself in other people’s shoes.
Imagine what is most important to them and what they might be dealing with that would affect their perspective.
2. Listen to what is not said.
Often what people don’t say might be far more important than the words they speak. Pay attention to tone of voice, body language, or changes in behavior. What cues or signals can you pick up about what is going on?
Here’s an example:
Manager: “Would you be able to get this report to me by Friday?”
Employee: “I guess I can do that.”
A manager who lacks empathy might say, “Great, thanks,” and leave the conversation there.
An empathetic manager will pick up on the hesitation from the employee (“I guess”) and respond with something like this:
“It sounds like that might be a challenge. What else is going on? Can I help?”
3. Right-size your empathy.
Empathy can be overused, but I find this to be rare. Instead what I find is that people who don’t like confrontation are often accused of having too much empathy. That’s not the same thing.
In Radical Candor, author Kim Scott talks about the problem of “Ruinous Empathy” as it relates to giving employees feedback or correcting behavior in the workplace. A skilled manager should be able to apply the right amount of empathy to know how the other person feels and to also correct the behavior or performance that is needed. Turning off empathy and being brutally honest isn’t a recipe for success, in my viewpoint.
What does happen is that people can take advantage of an overly-empathetic person by embellishing their pain or situation. The right amount of empathy would explore this carefully and make a judgment on how they might supply a healthy challenge.
4. Be patient with yourself.
Contrary to intuition, empathy can be learned. However, it requires consistent focus and will take time. Be kind to yourself (self-empathy!) and try to identify situations where you could be more empathetic.
You’ll know you’re doing empathy right when your staff and colleagues regularly hit their goals and also feel comfortable asking for help and admitting failure. Until then, keep working at it and gather feedback from your direct reports, giving them the opportunity to “manage up.”
