The Rising Need for Empathetic Leadership: 5 Ways to Lead with Empathy

Welcome to The Talent Marketplace by Fuel50. We share exclusive insights on employee engagement, career mobility, talent retention, skills development, talent intelligence, talent visibility, and more to support a successful transformation of the talent experience and help future-proof your workforce.

Empathy is vital for fostering a happy and safe workplace, making it a key quality for leaders wanting to inspire, motivate, and engage their employees. It’s all about understanding what your employees are going through ----and having the ability to put yourself in their shoes to try and understand their thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Empathetic leadership has taken on a whole new meaning since the Covid-19 pandemic. With the world heading into increased unpredictability and uncertainty, people are experiencing higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. As a result, they are seeking employers who can understand and empathize with what they have been going through.  

Heather E. McGowan, Author of ‘The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce’ spoke about how this has changed the way we pick leaders today on The Talent Experience Podcast.

“We used to pick the leader who was the unquestioned expert, who could make decisions in certainty, who could drive productivity with domination, fear, and sometimes humiliation. Now that all backfires because you can’t make those decisions in certainty, you don’t have all that information, you have to understand your people, what they’ve been through, and what they can contribute.”

Leaders of today need to have a level of emotional intelligence to ensure their people feel understood, cared for, and supported as they encounter challenges in their personal and professional lives.

Demonstrating Empathy is a Win-Win for All

Employees that experience empathy from their leaders are known to experience less burnout, more motivation, and increased work-life balance. A Catalyst survey of nearly 900 employees also found that empathy is an important driver of innovation, engagement, and inclusion. Here are some of the survey’s most impactful findings:

• Higher Employee Engagement. 76% of employees with highly empathic leaders report they are often or always engaged, compared to only 32% of employees with less empathic leaders.
• Increased Innovation. 61% of employees with highly empathic leaders report they are more innovative at work compared to only 13% with less empathic leaders.
• Higher Retention. 57% of white women and 62% of women of color who feel their life circumstances are respected and valued by their employer report never or rarely thinking of leaving their organization. In contrast, ony 14% of white women and 30% of women of color who didn’t feel like their employer valued or respected their life circumstances reported that they never or rarely think about leaving the organization.
• Increased Inclusivity. 50% of people with highly empathic leaders report often or always experiencing inclusion at work, compared to only 17% of those with less empathic leadership.
• Better work-life balance. 86% of employees who feel that their leaders are more empathetic report being much more able to balance work obligations with family and personal obligations, compared to 60% with less empathic leaders.

These findings show how critical empathetic leadership is in building a healthier, engaged, and motivated workforce. Genuine empathy allows leaders to connect with their people on a deeper level to understand their values and motivators. This enables leaders to create the right work environment needed for their happiness, productivity, and performance.

5 Ways to Lead with Empathy

Empathy is a skill, and fortunately, every skill can be learned and perfected over time. Here are a few ways you can start empathizing with your people:   

1. Take the time to listen and understand your people

Leading with empathy requires you to understand the unique situations of each of your team members. Ask them questions and listen intently. Learn more about them as people and take time to understand their life circumstances so you can tailor their work arrangements and priorities accordingly.

When employees feel like their leader genuinely cares about their feelings and personal situations, they become more engaged and happy at work. Not only will their performance improve, but they will be more willing to go the extra mile if they know their leader would do the same for them.

2. Advocate for their career progression and growth

Engage in meaningful career conversations with your employees to uncover their professional goals. Where do they see themselves in the future? What are their current career goals? What do they enjoy most about their job? Understanding what these are will enable you to be a better advocate for them in the future.

A talent marketplace like Fuel50 enables you to help employees develop their skills, and offer them internal opportunities to progress in their career. This approach puts the employee first, making them feel valued while also will demonstrating that you are willing to support their growth and help them reach their full potential. This will also impact the bottom line of your business through improved productivity, engagement, and retention.

You need to help people connect with their own internal drive that motivates them to learn and adapt on their own. And empathy is really an important part of that. - Heather E. McGowan, Thought Leader & Author

3. Look out for their wellbeing

Constant burnout and stress can be extremely damaging to employee wellbeing and morale if not addressed swiftly and promptly. It can lead to disengagement, work-related injuries, and employee turnover.

If you notice an employee struggling with their workload, reach out and see how they are. A simple “how are you?” or “how are you feeling with your current workload?” can make all the difference. Empathetic leaders can spot burnout early on, helping to reduce issues before they eventuate.  

Even more, empathetic leaders work to create a safe space for employees to speak up and voice their concerns, and initiate positive reinforcement for those who do speak up when at risk of burnout.

The emotional turmoil caused by COVID-19 has resulted in workforce burnout and has prompted us to reflect on and reframe what makes a great leader. Empathy, [which was] once considered a ‘nice to have,’ now needs to be woven into corporate culture. - Silke Muenster, Chief Diversity Officer of PMI

4. Communicate with transparency and kindness

Clear and transparent communication is key to building a good rapport with employees and acknowledging they are being heard. Be transparent with your team and keep them informed of the organization’s goals, opportunities and challenges, and other important information that may affect them. This helps build trust and ensures they aren’t blindsided or misinformed.

As a leader, communicating with kindness will set an example for your employees to communicate the same way. This will make them feel more comfortable to open up to you and to others within the team, helping to facilitate effective collaboration, teamwork, and honest feedback.

5. Encourage and ask for feedback

It’s important to create a culture of open feedback to encourage continuous improvement. Take the time to understand what employees are experiencing by asking for their input and feedback. This is especially crucial when implementing new processes or procedures. Gain insights from employees to ensure these processes are working for them, or if tweaks may need to be made to ensure they are effective and efficient.

Encouraging feedback will help uncover issues that may be festering. Anonymous surveys can also be a great way of facilitating this feedback. Empathy plays a big role in making employees feel comfortable enough to open up and share feedback honestly.

Empathetic leadership allows employees to feel, to be heard, and to be accepted. It sparks authenticity and compassion to create genuine leader-employee relationships that contribute to workplace happiness and organizational success. The research speaks for itself -– empathy is a key skill that leaders need to build a highly engaged and motivated workforce. 

Enjoying our newsletters? You may also like our Talent Experience Podcast, where we chat with leading HR analysts, industry influencers, and other thought leaders about their insights, stories, and advice on creating better work experiences. Available on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

For more research and insights on how to future-proof your organization, visit the Fuel50 blog.