WHY IS YOUR EMPATHY AS A LEADER SUCH A BIG DEAL RIGHT NOW?
The school year is about to end. Students and teachers alike are looking forward to the summer break with eager anticipation.
But the stress of day-to-day school life continues to burden teachers – senior teachers especially – as the demands and expectations of meeting their responsibilities continue. They continue to need your support and encouragement. Your goodwill and understanding. But perhaps more than anything, they need your empathy.
Daniel Goleman, who first posited the dimensions of emotional intelligence in the early 90s, regarded other-awareness, that sense of others’ needs and that endeavour to understand others’ situation and circumstances, together with offering those whom you lead clear indications that you were there for them, as being the second key dimension of emotional intelligence after your own self-awareness. He called it empathy.
Empathy is not the same as compassion, though and empathetic leader will show compassion towards others. Compassion is a deep sympathy for the burdens and sorrows of others, accompanied by an urge to alleviate their pain.
Nor is empathy the same as sympathy itself – sympathy allows another a sense of your fellow feeling, of kinship almost, along with your identification with their feelings, no matter whether they are positive or negative.
Empathy goes further than compassion and sympathy. Empathy is your ability authentically to identify with the perspective, experiences or motivations of another, as well as to imagine yourself in their situation, condition or circumstances. It is the ability to comprehend and share another individual’s emotional state, together with your vicarious participation in their emotions. It is your ability to put on their moccasins and walk a mile in them.
Fast Company Deputy Editor Kathleen Davis (see This is how to be an empathic leader during stressful times, in Fastcompany, 17 Nov 24), says that in a practical sense, leading with empathy results in making people feel heard and valued, showing your senior staff and all your teachers in fact – especially at this time of the year – that you value and appreciate their efforts; that you know they are weary and heavy-laden; and that you care whether they are doing OK.
When the going gets tough, you want to be the kind of leader who makes things easier for the people who work for you, not by doing their work for them, but by appreciating all that they are doing and how well they are doing it. Part of this means asking your team members for their perspective on how they are doing and how things are going generally, as well as considering what they express when making your decisions, Davis helpfully observes. In brief, she argues, the best way to make your employees feel respected and valued during stressful times is to be more empathetic.
Empathy isn’t an emotion, it’s a choice
For Goleman, empathy was a choice driven by a predisposition among highly emotionally intelligent leaders to demonstrate and express their empathy for their team members as they responded or reacted when they realised their team members were facing challenging situations. Davis similarly asserts that empathy is a mindset more than a leadership attribute. It is observed in the leader’s behaviour towards their team members. For Davis, being an empathetic leader is the difference between telling their team members how to solve a problem; or showing their team members that they know and understand they are doing it tough, and then choosing to speak and behave in ways that encourage and empower their people to craft solutions in their own way.
Empathy requires transparent and clear communication
According to Davis, one of the biggest ways to express empathy – as well as to build and maintain trust - as a leader is to be as clear and transparent as possible. In support, she cites explains Fast Company contributor Leah Mether, who writes, especially in times of uncertainty, employees crave straightforward, transparent messaging from their bosses that goes beyond directives and plans. When things feel uncertain or stressful, share as much information as you can and be honest, Davis counsels, adding that your people are smart and see through platitudes and shallow commendations however well-intended.
At this time of the school year, senior staff respect you more when you tell it like it is and how it is, noting your underlying understanding and empathy for their situation and their busyness. It’s also helpful to be able to clearly articulate your team or company’s vision, Davis suggests, as well as restating your priorities clearly and explaining the “why” behind decisions you may be making. Empathy is about taking people into your confidence.
Empathy means setting realistic expectations
It’s also important to set realistic expectations. Mether points out that when your people are overwhelmed with work and so much feels out of control, having realistic and clear expectations about meeting your requirements really helps. Help people by setting realistic deadlines, and by giving people sufficient notice so that they can be clear about their personal and professional priorities in this silly season of the school year.
Empathy means putting on your team members’ moccasins
Davis notes that Fast Company contributor Stephen Kohler advises leaders to use empathetic pragmatism, saying that navigating difficult times requires leaders to acknowledge that they understand the harsh realities of what the organisation is attempting to accomplish under time pressure, while at the same time keeping in mind the people those decisions affect. Another way to think of this is balancing compassion with decisiveness. Kohler advocates that one of the best ways to put this into action is to put yourself in your employee’s shoes.
his may sound obvious, Davis allows, but it’s easily overlooked. Ask yourself: at the end of the school year, when we are all so busy with marking and reports and end-of-year events, if I were given extra work, including covering classes for colleagues who were off and away at a Year-group camp somewhere, or had to pick up additional marking because someone else was sent on a PD course, what might I be thinking or feeling? How would it feel if the impact meant spending less time with my family? How would it directly impact my ability to make my contribution as a member of my own team?
How would it make me feel towards a boss I trusted, who apparently could not care less about the way I was feeling as I loyally if reluctantly accepted the extra work?
Putting the other person’s moccasins on is a great metaphor to help us assess how our empathy and our understanding is needed to inform our actions and our decisions in the ways they affect other people. It is asking Is this how I would want to be treated by my boss?
fter all, treating people the way you would like to be treated is called the “golden rule” for a reason, Davis reminds you. Your empathy can and should guide you as to how to speak and act towards all the members of your team as you seek to guide them through the vagaries of another end of year.