Got Empathy?
Dr. Rodney Macon CSM(R), DrBA, PMP
Senior Program Manager | Strategic Supply Chain & Logistics Leader | Author | Keynote Speaker
Got Empathy?
Leaders lead! I know this is not revelatory or groundbreaking information, but leaders lead. They lead with many identifiable characteristics and attributes that are catchphrases and buzzwords we often hear today—decision maker, motivates others, integrity, communicator, and empathic, to name a few.
The best leaders display these attributes and characteristics in seminal moments or in times of crisis. I think of Nelson Mandela's empathic leadership during the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa. Similarly, despite flaws and insurmountable opposition, Martin Luther King Jr.'s empathic leadership was displayed as he championed a movement that would affect millions for decades, if not centuries, later, also, regardless of your political affiliation or thoughts of former president George W. Bush who showed empathy and courage in comforting a nation after the horrific attacks on 911 and then leading them in the fight against terrorism and tyranny. Empathetic leadership is essential for organizations from the military to the corporate space.
Empathetic and compassionate leaders create a collaborative and productive environment and foster a sense of trust and respect among team members. They also improve communication and collaboration, increase motivation, and improve decision-making. These are valuable when all is well but more important when times get tough. Recently a senior manager in my company called an impromptu meeting. In this article, I will refer to the senior manager as "Meg." Meg called a meeting to discuss the recent layoffs’ impact on the company. Like many on the call, I had no idea what to expect. Meg began the call by offering a heartfelt explanation (Not an Excuse) for what happened and what we would do moving forward. Also, Meg mentioned the next steps for the employees affected. I was taken aback by the amount of compassion and empathy Meg expressed during the discussion. I sent Meg a direct message, stating, "that is what leadership looks like." I have been around great military and corporate leaders, and I cannot remember being more impressed with a leader. I am not putting Meg in the same room as the aforementioned leaders. Of course, the scope and scale of their accomplishments out weight Megs, but the level of empathy and compassion was right there.
What does empathy look like in a leader?
Empathy is recognizing, understanding, and sharing another person's feelings. Empathetic leaders can understand their employees' emotions and work together to achieve a common goal. This leadership type benefits any organization by creating an atmosphere of respect, trust, and understanding.
Arguments that empathy matters
Empathetic leaders are better leaders because they understand the emotions of their employees and can use that understanding to foster collaboration and productivity. For example, a compassionate leader may recognize when an employee feels overwhelmed and provide support and guidance to help them manage their workload. By understanding the emotional needs of their employees, empathetic leaders can create a more productive and collaborative environment. Furthermore, empathetic leaders can foster a sense of trust and respect among their employees and across an organization.
?Got Empathy??(A Deeper Dive)
Going deeper will focus on the literary theory and types of empathy. Clark, Robertson, & Young (2019) surmised that empathy is a multidimensional construct of cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions and has been advanced as a critical predictor of prosocial behavior and effectiveness in the workplace and society. Depending on your worldview or background, you will land in one of these areas. The conceptualization of empathy has been debated for centuries, but we will discuss the construct from an abridged lens for brevity.?
As mentioned, empathy is a construct that has been long debated. Many have postulated that the conceptualization of empathy dates back to the beginning of philosophical thought (Stotland, Matthews, Sherman, Hansson, & Richardson, 1978). Still, Edward Titchener (1909) is credited as the first to translate the German concept of?Einfühlung?to English in the early 20th century. Since then, thousands of researchers have studied the role of empathy in human behavior across various disciplines. Despite the vast interest in the construct, scholars and intellectuals have struggled to agree on what exactly empathy is and, contrarily, what it is not. Confusion on the conceptualization of empathy has been so pervasive that scholars have lamented that there are many definitions. Cuff et al. (2016) have concluded that their review has 43 distinct definitions/conceptualizations of empathy. Regardless of the debate, empathy is the better part of us. Being able to relate to our neighbor deepens our bond and connection.?
Getting a group of people to agree on a single definition of anything is challenging, and the meaning of empathy proved to be no different. While a unified purpose remains elusive, scholars generally acknowledge empathy as a multidimensional construct operating at both trait and state levels (Cuff et al., 2016). Scholars mainly include cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions (Van der Graaff et al., 2016). The trait level views empathy across situations and tends to be a more stable and enduring characteristic or pattern of behavior, while the state level views empathy within conditions or how a person feels in the moment. For example, how a person feels, thinks, behaves, and relates to an event or situation.?
Affective Empathy
Affective empathy can be defined as the tendency to experience affective states congruent with others' affective states (trait) or the state of experiencing an affective state congruent with another person's affective state (state). Gonzalez-Liencres et al. (2013) argued that affective empathy, or feeling the same affective state as another person, is thought to be the phylogenetically earliest system of empathy. For example, infants as young as one or two days old tend to cry more loudly in response to another infant's cry than to non-human noise (Sagi & Hoffman, 1976). ????????
Gallese and Goldman (1998) posited that affective empathy draws primarily from the simulation perspective, which states that humans instinctively respond to other people's affective states through the perception-action mechanism (PAM). Furthermore, affective states are transmitted between people, so the observer feels the same affective state as the target. There is some debate in the empathy literature regarding whether affective empathy involves feeling a congruent affective state with another person or merely a similar affective state to another person (Cuff et al., 2016). Expanding the definition of affective empathy to include feeling similar conditions to another person has contributed to the confusion of affective empathy and distinct, discrete emotions, such as sympathy/compassion.?
Cognitive Empathy
Cognitive empathy can be defined as the tendency to understand others' internal states (i.e., their thoughts and affective states) (trait) or the state of understanding another person's internal state (i.e., their thoughts and affective state). Wellman (2014) surmised that cognitive empathy draws from the theory of mind perspective, which posits that people understand the mental conditions of others through a system of rules derived from their own experiences. Research has shown that various cognitive strategies can result in cognitive empathy, including taking a target's perspective, reading facial expressions, and accessing memories of relevant previous situations (Cuff et al., 2016).
Nevertheless, debates exist in the literature about the magnitude to which cognitive empathy is tantamount to perspective-taking. Perspective-taking is "the process of visualizing the world from a different vantage point or seeing oneself in another person's shoes" (Galinsky, Ku, & Wang, 2005). While cognitive empathy and perspective-taking are sometimes used interchangeably, researchers have distinguished between the cognitive process of perspective-taking and the outcome of cognitive empathy (i.e., actual knowledge of a target's internal state). Thus, perspective-taking can result in cognitive empathy and is not synonymous with cognitive empathy. Also, perspective-taking is not the only cognitive process that can result in cognitive empathy (Cuff et al., 2016; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006). For example, cognitive empathy may also be achieved by attending to others' emotions (Joliffe & Farrington, 2006) and reading and interpreting facial expressions (Besel & Yuille, 2010).
Behavioral Empathy
Behavioral empathy can be defined as the tendency to engage in (trait) or the state of engaging in (state) verbal and non-verbal behaviors that demonstrate affective and cognitive empathy, including behavioral mirroring and empathic communication behaviors. Some research has also focused on the behaviors involved in acting empathically. The empathy literature generally focuses on two forms of empathic behavior: behavioral mirroring and empathic communication. Behavioral mirroring, also called "motor empathy, "refers to mimicking others' facial expressions, mannerisms, postures, and gestures (e.g., Chartrand & Lakin, 2012; Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000). Behavioral mirroring can also include verbal mimicry, which refers to mimicking syntax, language style, speech rate, and tone (e.g., Manson, Bryant, Gervais, & Kline, 2013; Meinecke & Kauffeld, 2018).?
Sympathy/Empathic Concern/Compassion
Though there are many definitions of sympathy and related constructs such as empathic concern and compassion in the literature, these constructs all emerge from an appraisal of another person's suffering, involve feelings of respect for the suffering person's well-being, and are often accompanied by a desire to help the suffering person. Historically, some scholars have discussed sympathy as a dimension of empathy (e.g., Davis, 1983).
However, the current consensus across disciplines is that empathy and sympathy are distinct constructs (e.g., Bernhardt & Singer, 2012; Cuff et al., 2016; Davis, 2009; Gonzalez-Liencres et al., 2013; Ickes, 2003; Zaki, 2014).
A critical difference between empathy and sympathy/concern/compassion is that affective empathy involves the experience of affective states congruent with others' affective states. In contrast, sympathy does not involve experiencing the same affective state as the target. For example, affective empathy occurs if an observer interacts with a distressed target and feels the target's distress. However, sympathy/compassion would happen if the observer—instead of feeling distressed—feels moved to alleviate the target's suffering. In other words, "compassion and empathic concern can be thought of as observers feeling for social targets without feeling as those targets do" (Zaki, 2014, p. 1632, emphasis in original).
Moreover, affective empathy is possible anytime an observer is exposed to a target's affective state, regardless of the valence or appraisal of that state. In contrast, sympathy/compassion is only relevant when an observer perceives a target as suffering (Bloom, 2016). Thus, affective empathy may occur in broader situations than sympathy/compassion.
Current conceptualizations describe sympathy/empathic concern/compassion as an emotional response to empathy (Bernhardt & Singer, 2012; Davis, 2009; Gonzalez-Liencres et al., 2013); this temporal ordering is supported by experimental evidence that manipulating cognitive empathy increases subsequent sympathy (Stocks, Lishner, Waits, & Downum, 2011). The empirical distinction between sympathy and empathy is also supported by research finding that empathy and sympathy are associated with different neural activation patterns (e.g., Banissy et al., 2012; Klimecki, Leiberg, Ricard, & Singer, 2013) and are differentially associated with a variety of outcomes (e.g., Longmire & Harrison, 2018).
Summary
In summary, in the cumulative interdisciplinary body of research on empathy, empathy is considered a multilevel construct occurring at both the trait level (empathy across situations) and the state level (empathy within conditions). Additionally, the literature supports three distinct dimensions of empathy:
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This multidimensional and multilevel conceptualization allows us to critically evaluate where organizational research on empathy is lacking and provide specific recommendations for how organizational researchers can overcome these limitations.
? References
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