Empathy is an important leadership attribute that directly impacts your ability to relate well to others. When it comes to leading others, empathy is a clear difference maker. Those who lead others in an empathetic way are seen as caring and in touch with their followers. In this article, we examine the leadership attribute of empathy and discuss the balance needed for empathetic effectiveness.

Empathetic Leadership Defined
Empathy is the ability to understand the perspectives and emotions of others (i.e., thoughts, concerns, vantage points, motives, mental states, feelings, and sensibilities). A common metaphor for empathy is “walking in the shoes of another.” Empathy is not agreement with others, nor is it focused on pleasing others; its intent is to understand others and to gain an appreciation of their circumstances. As a leader works to create vision, solutions, policy, and a motivated workforce, the ability to factor in the perceived impact of decisions on others is crucial for effectiveness. In fact, several leadership domains are directly affected by the ability to be empathetic.

 

Leadership Domains and Empathy

 

Empathy: A Model of Health
Empathy is a part of everyone’s makeup and we all use it to various degrees. Because it is a part of our human capacity, each of us has a different natural inclination toward using it. The Empathy Model shown here illustrates that moderate amounts of empathy tend to produce the most effective results. At either end of the model are counterproductive applications of empathy: Detached (very low amounts) and Entangled (very high amounts).

 

Each of the three regions that are displayed in the model has distinct attributes that affect how productive our empathy is in relation to our ability to lead others.

 

Detached
Leaders who operate with empathetic detachment give little or no consideration to the perspective or feelings of others. Because of this behavior, others are reluctant to share thoughts and feelings openly. Trust is rarely evidenced toward leaders who show little compassion or deference toward others. These leaders have a hard time listening for meaning while others are communicating, and they often miss all but the most obvious clues about their concerns. All of this leads to ineffective leadership. These leaders get labeled as aloof, opinionated, arrogant, forceful, an outsider, short-sighted, and agitating.

 

Entangled
Leaders who operate with empathetic entanglement spend an inordinate amount of time and energy fretting over the opinions and feelings of others. This leads to people-pleasing and meddling behaviors where others can feel stifled, held back, and emotionally bound. These leaders also have a hard time holding others accountable and establishing meaningful performance measures, for fear of causing someone to feel bad about themselves. They often spend excessive amounts of time building consensus, even over small concerns. All of this leads to ineffective leadership. These leaders get labeled as protective, soft, overly emotional, indecisive, wishy-washy, and weak.

 

Productive
Leaders who operate within the empathetic productive zone consider the perspectives and concerns of those who are going to be affected by their leadership and carry out their duties in the light of this understanding. This leads others to feel understood and cared for. Trust and commitment grow under this type of leadership. These leaders are decisive and fair in their treatment of others. They are able to set high levels of personal accountability and inspire high levels of performance from others. These leaders are able to listen actively and recognize the unique contributions that others add to the work process. All of this leads to effective leadership. These leaders are seen as visionary, motivating, considerate, connected, resourceful, and influential.

 

Developing Productive Empathy
Most of us have the tendency to lean toward one of the two counterproductive extremes. Changing one’s empathy orientation takes time and effort; it should be viewed as a gradual progression toward the ideal, rather than a once-and-done activity. With this in mind, consider these suggestions for modifying your empathy orientation.

If you tend toward the detached extreme:

 

Believe the Best – Practice suspending judgments when others are sharing their perspectives or feelings so that you can hear what they are saying, visualize what they are seeing, and sense what they are feeling. Remember that empathy is not agreement; it is identification with others that is important.

 

Listen Actively – When others are communicating, consciously think about what they are saying about their motives, experiences, and feelings. A lot of what a person communicates is not on the surface, so you must tune your senses to intuit the deeper message that is being sent. Empathy will help you make sense of these subtleties.

 

Strive to Understand Differences – Make the effort to look beyond similarities in others. Consider how people’s roles, responsibilities, and experiences change their perspective and feelings. Determine how their agendas and goals cause them to value different priorities. Empathy can help you see beyond commonalities and gain a greater understanding of individual uniqueness.

 

Set Yourself Aside – When considering the perspectives and feelings of others, seek to adopt their sensibilities; try to set aside your own ideals, values, judgments, biases, and assumptions. Formulate strong arguments that support the various points of view. In short, learn to argue all sides of an issue. Empathy can help you rise above your personal beliefs and perspectives long enough to gain an appreciation for the perspective of others.

 

If you tend toward the entangled extreme:

 

Focus on Your Priorities – It is prudent to factor the impacts of change on others into your plans and decisions, but you cannot allow these impacts to stop you from carrying out your assignments. Ultimately, you are going to be measured on your ability to get things done. Empathy can help you implement plans and solutions that give deference to others, while accomplishing outstanding results.

 

Depersonalize the Issue – When you find yourself becoming overly concerned with the needs and wants of others, seek to gain an objective view of the core issue, removing individual biases from a situation. In short, separate personalities from principles. It’s true that you can’t please everyone; therefore, address your core issues and manage the human side of the fallout as best you can. Empathy can help you anticipate how others will respond and react to your leadership.

 

Consider the Greater Good – When you are conflicted about how to proceed due to concerns of offending or alienating others, seek to rise above the individual level of impact. Leaders need to act on behalf of the greater good of the team or organization over the needs and wants of individuals. Empathy can help you establish proper interpersonal boundaries and an environment of individual accountability.

 

Decide to Be Decisive – Don’t allow yourself to over process the emotions of others. Set deadlines and milestones for key actions and decisions and keep them. If you procrastinate because you worry about how others will be affected, force yourself to make the best determination possible and manage the results as best you can. Empathy can help you lead at the speed of change.

 

Mentorship is an ideal type of developmental relationship in which to work on increasing your productive empathy. You can rely on the trust that you have established in your mentoring relationship to help you speak openly and honestly about your ability to empathize. Your mentoring partner can provide insight into your tendencies and effectiveness as you attempt to become more productive in your empathy. As mentioned before, empathy is an ingrained habitual mode of operation and it will take repeated attempts at adopting a new behavior to change your empathetic habits.

 

The Practice Exercise below provides a starting point for you and your mentoring partner.

 

Practice Exercise
The following exercise can help you discuss with your mentoring partner how to become more productive in your empathy.

1. Assess which counterproductive empathy orientation (Detached or Entangled) you are predisposed to operate from. Determine your orientation by circling Detached or Entangled for each statement.

 

• When I read over the descriptions, I identified more strongly with the (detached, entangled) mode.
• Significant others in my life would describe me as being more (detached, entangled) in my relationships.

 

2. Discuss the conclusions of your assessment with your mentoring partner and ask for his/her perspective regarding your empathy orientation.

 

3. Discuss some strategies that you can apply for adopting a more productive empathy orientation.

 

4. Set up a future date to discuss your progress with your mentoring partner.

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