Do you care?

Not a trick question, rather an acknowledgment that people with strong technical, analytical skills are often not known for their empathy. They have honed their skills and expertise in a specialised field, sometimes to the exclusion of paying attention to how others feel.

At the World Finance Forum at which I presented earlier this year, several jokes were made about finance leaders not generally being known for their empathy, yet almost every session during the day touched on the importance of finance leaders leading people through change……. and that means cultivating empathy.

Empathy is a critical element of emotional intelligence and is often defined as the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes, an ability to feel or imagine another person’s emotional experience.

Why does it matter for leaders?

• To build high performing teams we need to understand what our employees want from their roles and what they need from us to operate at their best;
• To deliver a successful growth strategy we need to be able to take our customers’ perspectives;
• To breakdown silos and be more influential we need to connect with people across the business who may have expertise and experience worlds apart from ours;
• To increase the diversity in our organisation we need to expand our ability to connect with people very different from ourselves and challenge ourselves to look at the world through their eyes.

So, if you know that you have not historically demonstrated a large degree of empathy at work, what can you do? The good news is that your capacity for empathy is not fixed and it can be developed by making small changes in your daily life:

• Read widely – especially stories about people and lives very different to you. I have always loved books and they can provide wonderful insights into other ways of living, thinking and feeling. If you prefer a different medium try social media, movies or theatre but make sure you get out of your own cultural bubble.
• We naturally feel greater empathy to people most like us so learn to look for similarities and see the shared humanity when interacting with others.
• Don’t dismiss it when people explain how their experiences are different from yours – listen deeply and ask questions to learn more, without judgement.
• Take time to learn about the hopes and dream of the people you work with as well as the challenges they face.
• Mindfulness – be fully present and pay attention to facial expressions, tone of voice and body language in conversation as well as the words being spoken.
• Step out of your comfort zone and experience being a beginner again because the humility this fosters can be a pathway to empathy.

Practicing empathy at work is not always easy, especially if you’re under pressure to deliver to deadlines but you neglect it at your peril. I will leave the final words to Oprah Winfrey:

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”

And Stephen Covey:

“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.”

Being a leader is about so much more than your technical skills or your ability to get s**t done so if you’d like support in building your leadership capacity and taking your career to the next level then let’s have a chat .

With love,

Sue