Leadership Empathy: How to Walk a Mile in Your Employee’s Shoes

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” —Maya Angelou

We have all heard the quote, “Before you judge a person, walk a mile in their shoes.” This saying acts as a reminder to practice empathy. But what is at the core of empathy, and why is it so crucial in the workplace?

Empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Research has shown over and over again that empathy is a critical element for leaders to tap into in order to exhibit emotional intelligence, design thinking, high performance, effective teamwork, healthy relationships, and clear communication. It should come as no surprise then that empathy is the cornerstone of a leader’s effectiveness in keeping stakeholders confident, employees engaged, and customers loyal.

Increasing Our Empathy as Leaders

Roman Krznaric, a founding faculty member of The School of Life in London and an empathy adviser to organizations like Oxfam and the United Nations says, “Empathy doesn't stop developing in childhood. We can nurture its growth throughout our lives. Research in sociology, psychology, and history reveals how we can make empathy an attitude and a part of our daily lives." 

This is great news! It means leaders can evolve to show greater empathy towards others—including those they manage. But how? Let’s explore what empathy looks like in a leadership setting…

I once managed an employee named Jim, who was very competent and a hard worker. Jim received great feedback from customers and was viewed as a solid team member by his peers.

Then things changed. I began noticing Jim seemed regularly bothered and frustrated, both in team meetings and in one-on-one settings. I began to hear feedback from his teammates—who used terms like “difficult” and “passive aggressive” to describe his behaviors.

Concerned about Jim’s behaviors and worried they were quickly becoming a performance issue, I needed to engage in a hard conversation. Understanding the importance of our upcoming interaction, I wanted to prepare for it; I needed to support him in making the necessary adjustments for success.

But what could I do? How could I figuratively walk in Jim’s shoes? That’s where the ARC model came into play…

Understanding Human Motivation and Social Threats

Self-Determination Theory was developed by psychologists Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan in the mid-1980s and has been researched and refined by many scholars. This theory tells us that people have three innate psychological needs affecting well-being, motivation, and performance. These universal needs are Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence (ARC). 

Understanding that everyone has the same universal needs for social motivation helps guide leaders to effectively motivate staff and navigate the harder conversations that regularly accompany leadership roles. When a leader observes employees encountering challenges or performance issues, taking time to assess potential threats to their ARC can help to generate empathy and insight.

Neuroscience shows we process threats to our ARC the same way we process physical threats. This means that during difficult situations, we often find our survival instinct kicking in—telling us to fight, flight, or freeze. Often when threatened, we react (or over-react) and aren’t even aware that the situation has triggered these reflexive emotions. Our negative emotions lead to behaviors that are counterproductive for success. 

Leaders don’t have the ability to control employees’ emotions during difficult situations. Leaders do have the ability to increase their own empathy, so when engaging employees in harder conversations, they don’t produce additional ARC threats—but instead create an environment for increased understanding and trust. 

Using ARC for Increased Empathy

Understanding the importance of my upcoming conversation with Jim, I took about 10 minutes to prepare myself by assessing how I perceived his ARC might be threatened in his current work situation. My intention was to increase understanding of how Jim viewed and felt about his work. Following are my notes:

Autonomy. Jim was managing a company-wide project that required input and approval of many executive-level stakeholders who would regularly provide last minute input, giving him very little autonomy to leverage his planning and organizing skills to mitigate continuous shifts in direction. Jim’s manager (yours truly) also made it difficult, with his style of making last-minute changes under the justification of continuous improvement.

Relationships. Jim’s frustration was showing in how he operated in meetings and responded to customers with last-minute requests. Jim was beginning to isolate himself from those with whom he previously had strong relationships.

Competence. I knew Jim prided himself in doing great work. The lack of autonomy to control his environment prevented him from leveraging his strengths of organizing and planning to minimize surprise and chaos. I believed Jim felt threatened by the possibility of not being seen as competent by others.

WARNING: Assumptions created from assessing someone’s ARC should only be used to help guide questions to ask. These questions can confirm, adapt, or dismiss your assumed perceptions about that person’s feelings. One should never use ARC assumptions to tell people what, how, and why they are acting or feeling a certain way—as doing so would create additional threats. 

Based on the insights from “taking a walk in Jim’s shoes,” I answered the following questions to prepare for my meeting:

·        What is still unclear to me about how this situation is impacting Jim?

·        What questions should I ask Jim to better understand his feelings and perspectives?

·        What actions can I take to reduce threats to Jim’s ARC?

The product of this exercise produced the following questions for my upcoming meeting.

Autonomy

·        How do you feel your current situation allows you to project manage your work?

Relatedness

·        How do you feel about our team’s environment?

·        What can I do as your manager to better support you?

Competence

·        How do your current projects and responsibilities set you up for success?

Taking time to consider how Jim’s current situation was impacting his ARC—and preparing myself to lead with empathic questions—made all the difference. This process prepared me to lead with thoughtful questions and increased understanding of how Jim was experiencing his work situation.

It was still a hard conversation. It was my responsibility to provide Jim with feedback on how his frustration was negatively impacting others’ perception of him. But engaging in empathic thinking—and going through the ARC assessment—helped tremendously. In the end, Jim and I were able to lessen some of his ARC threats; but most importantly he felt heard and supported, allowing him to rebuild positive relationships with his team and customers.

As leaders, it’s important to take time to assess your employees’ ARC threats prior to engaging in a difficult conversation. This awareness provides you with insights into the questions you should ask—and equips you to interact with empathy.

Since very few of leaders’ actions are done alone, a leader’s success is directly tied to the quality of interactions with others. It is critical for a leader’s success to develop the ability to demonstrate empathy with their teams, customers, peers, and key stakeholders.