Leaders, let’s be more empathetic!

We are living in complex world driven by outcomes!

Being a leader in software industry, we always tend to chase our next gig/next awesome product. Many times, we forget that our biggest asset is our people. It is not intentional, but we treat team as a “resource” and try to bring objectivity/measurable performance as if it’s a “factory model”.

Let me share my recent experience. One of the top performing colleagues suddenly starting missing deadlines and she started behaving differently. When I realized this, rather than going to our normal way of informing HR /replacing “a” resource, I decided to take an “empathetic approach” and to my surprise, I was with her to help her come out from her personal trauma that she was going through.

Here is my way to be an empathetic leader:

1) Know your people: We must ask, assess, and observe or perhaps, observe, assess, and then ask! We as leaders (which we all should be acting as) need to observe the behaviors of our team members.

2) Promote compassion: The best way to learn how to be compassionate toward others is to be compassionate with yourself. Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement to show someone what they’re capable of. If someone you know is feeling down, one of the best ways of showing compassion is by offering encouraging words

3) Be a good listener: Listening, done well, is an act of empathy. You are trying to see the world through another person’s eyes, and to understand their emotions. That’s not going to happen if you are judging the other person as they’re talking.

4) Lead From Within: Leadership is about having the ability to relate and connect and listen and bond with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives

I am not perfect, and I am more than willing to learn from your experiences. Please do share with me and help me to be a better human[I would rather love to be called as better person than anything else] !

Thanks for reading.

Shrini