The Efficiency of Empathy

A lot of highly efficient leaders have resistance to the practice of empathy.

“Why would I bother empathizing with someone else?” they ask, “It’s inefficient — it may make someone feel better temporarily, but I’d rather just hire staff that don’t require this kind of coddling.”

There’s a lot of truth to the statement, and when you practice empathy for someone else, there’s not a lot of juice in it for you.

Personally, I’m a fan of enlightened self-interest — taking on things not because they benefit other people — “Doing it for them”, but instead, “Doing it for me”, and finding that it has a knock-on benefit for others.

The reason to practice empathy is because it will help you unlock your blindspots. This article explains how to do that.

Our judgment of someone else is rooted in the belief that we would never show up the way they are showing up.

This person in front of you is arrogant, or stupid, or selfish, or loud, or too quiet, or lazy, etc. Whatever it is, you have a hard time finding compassion for them because you can’t see how you yourself would ever show up that way.

In fact, your entire identity is probably based, to some extent, around the fact that you would NEVER be that way.

The trouble is that your blindspots are created by this identity of yours, and its accompanying judgments.

The more you have built your identity around the idea that you would never show up a particular way, the more your identity has a vested interest in keeping you from seeing how you show up exactly that way.

These are the steps to tackle this head on:

1. Surrender the idea that you are different from those you judge

• The first, and most challenging step, is to come to an acceptance that the more you insist you would never be a certain way, the more likely you will do so.
• This is an act of surrender.
• You have to release the identity you’ve created that you will never be X, Y or Z. As long as you hold on to this belief, it will hold onto you, and will keep you rooted in place. If you don’t care about things shifting, great. If you want transformation, take this on.

2. Discover how you are the same

• You have to go and discover, beyond an intellectual understanding, where and how you show up this same way.
• The intellectual understanding of this is asking yourself “Where do I know I do this?” and then satisfying yourself with that answer.
• Alas, if you already know about it, it isn’t in your blindspot, and if it isn’t in your blindspot, you’re not actually discovering anything new. Nothing new, no transformation.
• To get past this, you have to go out into the world and actively discover something.
• A discovery requires a surprise. You’ll know you’re discovering something when you have an experience that leaves you saying “Holy cow… I’m doing this here? I can’t believe it…”
• Go and be shocked.

3. Notice how you carve out an exception for yourself

• Look at your justification for why you take on this behaviour.
• Notice the reasons why you feel justified in the behaviour you just discovered, and how that alleviates the judgment and shame you may feel for catching yourself in the act.

4. Hold yourself with compassion

• As you start to see in yourself the same tendencies you judge others for, you will naturally want to close your heart, and direct the same judgment you have outwards, inwards.
• The good news is that this isn’t something new — it’s always been there. It’s just now in your consciousness, whereas before it was unconscious.
• Practise acknowledging the underlying shame for the way you just found yourself showing up, and acknowledge that this is just your humanity. You are doing the best you can, even if this isn’t necessarily how you would choose to show up.

By walking through these steps, you gain access to what was previously hidden from yourself by your judgments, and can then start to heal them. By healing your judgments, you will start to have compassion for yourself, and gain the ability to start to choose when you show up this way, rather than having it run wild in your blindspot.

This is the self-interest part. You gain access to your blindspots, and can start to deepen your range of practice as a leader.

As you walk these steps, you will start to have compassion for the way you show up, and that will, in turn, allow you compassion for those you might judge to show up this same way.

This is the enlightened part. Your deeper ability to have compassion towards yourself makes your life easier and freer, and will give you a greater capacity to be-with more of how those you lead show up.

To continue developing your leadership skills with these insights, subscribe to our email newsletter: https://bit.ly/AQinsights.

Join our community of leaders committed to personal and professional growth in our LinkedIn Group: Ontological Leadership Network. Looking forward to seeing you there–https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups/14482462/