EMPATHETIC INFLUENCE

This will be a long one, so here's the summary.

TL;DR

1: EMOTIONS are contagious.

 2: EMPATHY creates a connection that amplifies leadership influence.

3: BUT …  It's not that simple. The way you control the narrative changes the nature of the influence.

3: THEREFORE…If you are a leader the extent of your positive influence is governed by your capacity for empathy and your ability to shape a shared narrative towards the good.

4: WHY? … Because emotions are contagious, and we begin back at number 1

This article draws on neuroscience, social science, linguistic science and (my favourite), the power of narrative.

Turn off your notifications, go make some coffee, pack a snack, and then we’ll dive in.

Emotions are Contagious

In our brain we have two little almond-sized regions called the the amygdala. It is responsible for some really important things in the way we navigate the world.

You've probably heard about the fight, flight or freeze response:  three different kinds of emergency response that we adopt at the drop of a hat. The amygdala governs these responses.

The Amygdala: Threat Detector

The role of the amygdala is to help us act quickly when under threat. It does this by focusing our attention in an emergency, and dictating how we should respond. And it does all of this pre-consciously.

In an emergency, there's no time for thinking rationally. When we need to fight, flee, or freeze, we need contextual information as quickly as possible! There’s no time for conscious processing. And this is the amygdala’s superpower.

How the Amygdala Works

The amygdala extracts emotional data from our environment, treating them as cues for action if they meet the criteria of “apparent threat”. It is constantly, pre-consciously aware – always looking for things that it considers to be dangerous, but it does so “under the radar,” without our conscious attention. It’s a little bit like that great employee who flags things before you are aware of them. 

But part of the brilliance of this little threat detector is that it doesn't rely on language to communicate with us. It motivates an emergency response in us, physiologically, not intellectually.

Because of this, (and some other neurological realities) we are by default ‘wired’to connect to those around us. To pick up on vital emotional cues in our immediate context. When someone near us exhibits emotion, our amygdala registers that emotion and communicates it to us. But because the amygdala doesn’t have direct access to the language centres in our brain (it literally has no words to use) it shows us the danger... instead of telling us. 

This Next Bit Might Blow Your Mind

To “show us”  the brain uses a complex network of something called ‘mirror neurons’ that have the ability to recreate outside emotional information, INSIDE of us. Instead of labelling external emotions (remember, it doesn't have words to use) the amygdala mimics those emotions in our own bodies. 

The Research

One study, done by Nueman and Strack (2000) looked at the impact of emotive tone with two different groups of students listening to an audio recording of someone reading an academic textbook.

Happy Makes us Happy, Sad Makes us Sad

One group had a recording with a slightly happy tone of voice, the other group had a slightly sad tone. When the students were tested afterwards the tone of the recording had impacted on their mood. The ones with the happier tone exhibited a happier mood, and the ones with a sad tone were more sad. No surprises here I imagine? It seems quite intuitive this would happen.

Experiment Take #2

They then repeated the experiment with a new cohort but with one difference. They gave them each a task to perform while they listened. The task required conscious attention. They were told to stick metal pins into holes in a wooden board. This is a fairly mindless task, of course, but the impact it had on the participants' ability to recall the subject matter of the textbook afterwards, was noticeable. 

When their conscious attention was re-allocated to focus on the task at hand, instead of on the academic content of the recording, they couldn't cognitively take in the subject matter of the textbook being read to them. So they could not recall it or repeat it to the researchers afterwards. But…

You Ready to Have Your Mind Blown, Again? 

Here’s the interesting part: their subconscious attention to the emotional data in the tone of voice yielded the same mood-altering effect as they saw in the first experiment cohort.

Just like with the first group, the second experiment showed the same mood alteration – one happy group, one sad.

In both experiments the emotion in the voice of the reader, manifested inside the listener, affecting their own mood, bringing it in line with the mood performance of the reader. (Neumann & Strack, 2000)

Now this is not just true of audio information, the amygdala processes visual information too.

Not Just Sound, Amygdalas Like Visual Data Too

This preconscious ability to process visual emotional information is perhaps most acutely observable when people sustain damage to their optical nerve, disrupting the flow of information from their eyes to their visual cortex. Physiologically speaking their eyes are fine, mechanically, but the information doesn't get to where it needs to. So in other words, these people are, for all intents and purposes, blind. The experience of sight isn't there. However, does this hamper the amygdala's ability to pick up emotional data? No!

The amygdala is STILL able to pre-consciously process visual emotional information from the context, through the eyes, which technically still works at the organ level. How in any reasonable world is this even possible?!

Mind Blown #3

Pre-conscious processing of emotionally laden visual information happens via a shortcut, a backdoor mechanism between the eyes and the amygdala. The image that springs to mind is that alleged red telephone that the US president has that is a direct line to the Russian President. It probably doesn't exist (does it?) but at least in theory, they can pick up the phone and go directly to the seat of power on the other side, instead of using all the official channels. Another helpful analogy would be the secret passageway, a back channel through a castle wall to be able to get out without being noticed. Well, in the same way, the eyes have a secret passageway, not through the optical nerve, that can send information directly to the amygdala, without needing the help of the optical nerve or the visual cortex and the rational brain to make sense of it. This phenomenon is called Affective Blindsight.

Affective Blindsight

(*See exhaustive research ref at the end)

Daniel Goleman speaks about a patient with this kind of optical nerve damage who was shown shapes which of course he couldn't distinguish (he was blind). So he could not consciously describe or name them to the researchers. But when he was shown pictures of faces with strong emotional expressions he could SENSE the emotions portrayed. He could feel them. The cognitive process of recognition was impaired because his visual cortex got no information to process, but his emotional centres were fine and the emotional process worked as they should – the amygdala still extracted visual emotional meaning from the pictures, via the amygdala’s back channel ‘secret tunnel’ or ‘red telephone’.

What does this all mean?

When we pick up on the emotional cues around us, and our amygdala and mirror neurons do their thing, the emotional context outside actually becomes the reality inside. We recreate the emotional realities outside us, INSIDE us so that the body can respond physiologically when there is a threat. 

But, of course, the reverse happens too. When we produce emotional signals, and we put them out into the world we impact the environmental context of someone else. Then their amygdalas also do what our amygdala does... and now our internal reality (displayed in our body language and tone of voice etc), becomes their internal reality – emotions are contagious.

Emotional Contagion

You know this from personal experience, don't you? When a colleague comes to a meeting in a bad mood, it taints the whole meeting... impacting everyone. This is particularly amplified by the level of influence of that person. The higher up they are in the pecking order, the greater the emotional contagion.

The important point I want you to take from this is that this happens pre-consciously, through body language and tone of voice.

We can trigger emotions in others and they can trigger emotions in us. You can actually see this, neurologically, through brain imaging. If you were strapped to a hospital bed and hooked up to a brain scan, doctors would be able to see which parts of your brain are firing at different moments. If a nurse were to give you an injection in the arm, the doctors can see which parts of your brain show electrical activity on the scan. But if that nurse were to take that needle and poke herself in the arm instead, while you were watching (hooked up to the scan) that exact same part of your brain would show the same activity! You will have empathetically recreated the neural information of the stimulus she is experiencing, inside your own brain. (Your own arm nerves aren’t involved so you won't FEEL the needle, but your brain is connected to her experience. Thank you amygdala, thank you mirror neurons!

The same is true of smiling and scowling. Witnessing someone else's mood will show the same brain activity as having that mood yourself. 🤯

Why does this happen? The strongest argument is from evolutionary psychology. This is a left-over survival mechanism. 

Evolutionary Psychology: First Stay Alive!

The first rule of evolution is “stay alive!” To do that primitive human beings facing near-constant physical danger in multiple forms needed an early warning system for threat. So they crowdsourced the data collection by receiving threatening information from each other. If someone showed anxiety it could be picked up by others so that everyone could respond quickly. It’s a lot like what we still see today in the wild today. When one zebra senses danger, the amygdalas of the other zebras recreate that sense of danger inside their own bodies, and the whole herd acts as one, and off they run.  In human beings, this is called Emotional contagion.

We each know this instinctively, don't we? (even though we aren't zebras). It doesn’t just happen in the work meeting, it happens at home too. We experience it with laughing and crying. When you're really trying to hold it together at a funeral and then the person giving the eulogy starts crying, your tears start flowing too. Out come the handkerchiefs.

Ok. Let's move on to another big section of this newsletter Empathy.

Empathy

This ability to connect to the emotions of others is what makes empathy possible

But what is empathy, really? Well, it’s a skill, in the broader context of a set of skills called Emotional Intelligence.

I have picked up over the years that most people tend to have an understanding of empathy that is a little one-dimensional. This is your chance to expand on that a little. In the world of leadership, we need to increase our understanding of it (on two fronts) if we want to lead well. 

Empathy Definition Deficiency #1

The first deficiency in our understanding is that we generally think of empathy only in terms of stress situations. This is too small a category for how empathy works.

If I say: "John had empathy for what Peter was going through,” you’re probably going to assume Peter is having a hard time. But empathy isn't only for pain. (To be fair, because of the evolutionary protective function of the amygdala, our empathy is triggered much more acutely, and more often, in moments of difficult emotion, but it is not reserved for that.) Let me give you an analogy to make the point.

If I say, “It's dangerous to ignore the speed limit.” You'll probably automatically imagine danger from driving too fast but it is possible to drive dangerously slowly too. In fact, on certain lanes on the highway, there are minimum speed limits for this very reason. 

The point is, we have a default interpretation around “danger and speed limits”. And the same is true of empathy. 

In it's essence empathy is an emotional connection with the emotional experience of another person, with a personal appreciation for the feeling. This means that at an experiential level “shared pain” and “shared joy” are both possible because we have an ability to experience empathy. 

So, whether positive or negative, empathy acts a bit like a bridge between me and you, but a bridge with two-way traffic. It's a bridge that allows your emotion to impact mine, and mine to impact yours. And the kind of emotion that travels over this bridge can be the nice kind AND the unpleasant kind. 

Empathy Definition Deficiency #2

But there is a second blindspot we have around empathy, another way we need to increase our understanding.

The word empathy has only been around for about 150 years or so, and its meaning has changed fairly dramatically over that time. In fact, in popular understanding, the meaning has pretty much reversed to be the other side of the empathy coin.

What Empathy Used to Mean

The prefix em- means "to put in, or into" we see it in other English words like empower – to increase someone's power. Or embellish – to add detail.

Psychologists first started using the prefix to add to the idea of pathy, or feeling. They were looking for an English word to serve as a translation of the German term Einfühlung, which is much closer to the idea that someone could "project their own feelings onto a viewed object." 

Empathy originally meant giving my emotions to you.

Now, in popular understanding, it means the direct opposite, empathy is about how I can adopt the feelings of the other. 

As language has shifted, the original technical psychological definition is now pretty much obsolete... in the field of psychology. But, I think we should bring it back in leadership.

As leaders, if we want to understand the power of empathy, we need to realise that it is not just the empathy of those who follow us, but also our own empathy for and with those who follow us, that unlocks our influence in them. I’m going to say that again because I hope it's a bit of a mic-drop moment (or at least I think it should be 😉).

Take 2: As leaders, if we want to understand the power of empathy, we need to realise that it is not just the empathy of those who follow us, but also our own empathy for, and with those who follow us, that unlocks our influence in them.

Empathy is a bridge between me and you, as I said, with two-way traffic. But beyond two-way traffic, there is the reality that it's not a pull-only system, we can “push” emotion over that bridge too. Emotions are contagious, after all.  

We are not only “impacted by…”, in a passive sense, as if the impact is accidental, just the result of our amygdalas and mirror neurons “doing their thing”, preconsciously. Empathy is not just a bridge that accepts incoming traffic, we can send traffic over this same bridge too. If we understand how these parts of our brains do what they do, then impact can be directed through emotion. The impact can be intentional (not accidental by default of some evolutionary survival mechanism.) 

In leadership, empathy must be active, not passive. We need to remember the initial definition from that German word Einfühlung: “To project our feelings onto the other"

So as a leader what should we be projecting?

Leadership Influence Through Empathy

Leaders have influence already, we know this, the best leaders have the most influence. So it makes sense that those who follow us will pick up on our emotional realities, and be impacted by them. In a passive sense. They can't help it.

So what does this mean... well, it means if leaders have the power to project their own emotional state into others, through empathy, then the stakes are high. 

What kind of leader do you want to be? The kind that sends harmful emotion over the bridge by default of our shared neurological realities, that their automatic amygdala response and mirror neurons will receive as a threat? Triggering their fight, flight or freeze responses?  Or do you want to be able to send helpful emotion, on purpose, to EMpower, EMbrace, EMbolden, EMpathise and invite the other into an emotional state that will have a beneficial impact in their lives…?

I know what contribution I want to make to the brains of those around me. 

Halve the Burden, Double the Joy

If this old saying is in any way true, that a

"A burden shared is a burden halved, a joy shared is a joy doubled," then the power of empathy in leaders to alleviate pain and increase positive emotion is massive. And if we can model that in our companies, our teams and departments.... then the future is bright.

The Best Teams Have Empathy

A study assessing teams at Google found that in the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs. In other words, the best teams have empathy (Charles Duhigg, 2016). 

But how can you accomplish this reality in your team? 

Does it mean you need to “force the positive” all the time? Am, I saying that being a leader means faking it, not sharing the difficult stuff? No, not at all. Empathy relies on authenticity. And by definition, you can’t fake authenticity.

No... we are living in some really difficult times. Let’s be honest about them. I read an article recently with the title "Your boss secretly wants to quit." I get that. I feel that sometimes. 

Leadership in this post-pandemic season is excruciating, even years after Covid. Many leaders aren’t equipped to lead a workforce that is struggling with remote work, mental health challenges, the rise of depression and anxiety and the skyrocketing impact of personal stress. Pretending everything is fine, putting on your “happy face”.... No, that's not the answer.

But there is a way to be honest, and still move towards a destination that is hopeful.

Barbara Frederickson, a force in the field of Positive Psychology says that if we can achieve a 3:1 ratio of positive to negative emotion, and we can maintain it then we can build resources in an upward spiral. 

For a leader to share authentically when things are hard doesn't reset the “positive emotion meter” like the factory board that says "287 days since the last workplace safety incident on the factory floor." No, when our leader shares authentic struggles the rest of us "get it" ... we're all already feeling that way too. We're exhausted as well. The leader doesn’t make it worse, in fact with authentic vulnerability they make it better – a burden shared is a burden halved, after all. In a moment like that, where negative emotion is shared honestly, people connect emotionally.

But instead of letting the team head into hopelessness, a leader can redirect, and remind the team of how inspired they are by the work being done, and by the team’s tenacity and resilience. She can remind the team of the impact they are having. She can hold up a mirror to them of how awesome they are, and tell them the story of their contribution.

In many ways, perhaps in the most important ways, leadership is storytelling. 

So what stories are you telling?

Narrative Identity:

There is a psychologist, Dan McAdams, from Northwestern University in the States. He talks about “narrative identity.” The “story of self” – the self that is generated as a result, not of the actual story of our lives, but of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. He calls these stories 

McAdams uses a phrase to talk about these stories, they are "our own personal myth."

Fiction and Fact

I'm busy reading JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit to my kids. Now, that particular story has goblins and orcs, and elves and wizards; fantastical challenges and obstacles to overcome. But every story has some kind of goblins or trolls. Even the story of your workplace. And most of us feel like a hobbit, or some equivalent, a lot of the time, especially at work.

Now in these “personal myths”  that we each have in our own lives, and that we have for our companies, we make narrative choices, that create a narrative identity of who we are in the story we perceive.

But narrative identity isn’t simply about the stories we live, what McAdams is interested in, is how we TELL the story we live – subjectively.  How we anticipate the road ahead. Because not only are we IN our own story, we are the narrators of it. We frame ourselves and others in certain ways in the telling of the story. 

We Write the Stories

We choose what to see. We decide what to say about what we face. We are literally the storytellers of the story we live – both at home as individuals, and at work, as leaders, telling the story of who our company is, and who our department is.

Now it’s important that you understand the nuance here.... it’s not about what events we choose to talk about – the trials, the victories and defeats. Its not about which characters we highlight – the goblins, the wizards or the companions. No… It is HOW we talk about these things. How we interpret them.

The story isn't what happens... it’s not about the plot. The story is what we do about what happens. The resonance of the story is not about the events, it's about how we see the events and the kind of person we become as a result.

Two Kinds of Stories We Tell

McAdams suggests there are two kinds of stories people tell. Contamination stories, and redemptive stories.

Contamination stories start well, and end in disaster. Redemption stories start off badly but get better. In traditional narrative genres, this is essentially tragedy and comedy.

What Story do You Tend Towards Telling?

In his research, McAdams has found that people who tell contamination stories are less “generative,” or less driven to contribute to society and at work. On the whole, they are also more prone to anxiety and depression. And they feel that their lives are less coherent compared to those who tell redemptive stories.

I mean, this is part of the great gift that psychotherapy has given to humanity. The ability to rewrite our stories. Not change the events, but reframe them. Not suppress the experiences, or repress the memories... but edit the interpretations of them.

In the world of Positive Psychology and Emotional Intelligence, we see this first-hand every day by using techniques repeatedly to reframe the story.. 

Some techniques foster gratefulness. Some build interpersonal strength and health. Other techniques help to reframe negative activating events that trigger unhelpful belief systems and put us into downward spirals. 

Through specific techniques, we can tell the story a different way.

So What Next?

So... what does this look like for you? 

You might be a leader going through hell, feeling ill-equipped to handle the dynamics of the current reality and the nature of the new world. You might be facing some kind of troll on the road ahead. Or you’ve lost your sword and all your food provisions, maybe even lost the path, and you’re feeling exhausted and full of despair. What can you do next?

Tell Better Stories

Show up differently in your meetings.

Edit the narrative beforehand, take 5 minutes at the start of the day to figure out what you can say and how to make use of those amygdala and mirror neurons in your tea. To send hopeful emotion over that bridge and start to shape a new narrative. 

Be an intentional storyteller.

It is not your job to force happiness into those who follow you, but if you understand the influence you already have, and the power of empathy to increase that connection and amplify that influence, and if you understand the power of framing a redemptive story that pulls others up in an upward spiral. Then you will halve the burden, and double the joy. 

Armed with these tools and skills and weapons you will foster a team of people who are connected, who see a brighter future, and become more generative: at home, at work and in the world

Crafting Happiness isn't about just telling the happy parts of the story. No, that’s not a true story. Rather, it's about leveraging the bridge between you and the other, to EMpower them with a redemptive imagination for the story you share with them – framing the experience from bad to good, instead of the other way around.

As leaders, we can best serve others by meeting them in their challenges, connecting as humans, and then shaping the narrative towards flourishing and happiness. 

If we can do that, bravely go inward to boldly go upward, and then we can build an Emotionally Intelligent world. 

I’m up for that… what about you?"

Theran is the Chief Humanising Officer for Mygrow, the Emotional
Intelligence Platform. At Mygrow we care about helping people be
better, and seeing companies grow. We want to build an Emotionally Intelligent world. Feel free to reach out to us if you
are interested in finding out how we can help you create "The team you always wanted." Visit www.mygrow.me or email us at hello@mygrow.me        

Affective Blindsight references

* (de Gelder, de Haan, & Heywood, 2001; Eastwood & Smilek, 2005; Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980).; (Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000; Esteves & Ohman, 1993; Jolij & Lamme, 2005; Killgore & Yurgelun-Todd, 2004; Liddell et al., 2005; Morris, Ohman, & Dolan, 1998; Murphy & Zajonc, 1993; Niedenthal, 1990; Pessoa, Japee, Sturman, & Ungerleider, 2006; Pessoa, Japee, & Ungerleider, 2005; Tamietto & de Gelder, in press; Whalen et al., 2004; Whalen et al., 1998; Williams et al., 2006; Williams et al., 2004);(Tamietto, Geminiani, Genero, & de Gelder, 2007; Tamietto et al., 2005; Vuilleumier, 2005; Vuilleumier & Schwartz, 2001)