Let’s talk about empathy. The second tenant of a heart-based leader.
Three years ago, I was sitting with a team of new coaches, and I asked each person to go around and share their backgrounds and initial goals for their leadership development. During this meeting, we got to the position leader in the group. We’ll call him, Jim. Without hesitation, Jim said, “I lack empathy”.
You could see the surprised faces and hear the half laughs as his colleagues reacted to the unexpected admission. I thought to myself, “Wow, what a courageous and vulnerable thing to share”. Jims’ reputation was that he didn’t listen, that he was too direct and came across as insensitive. I worked with him for nine months.It soon became clear that Jim didn’t lack empathy. He just didn’t know how to show empathy.
Let’s think back to Bob. My former client, and the micro-manager at your company that can come across as insensitive and rude. I think we can all agree that Bob lacks the ability to show empathy. He makes assumptions about other people, rather than trying to understand their motivators and preferred communication style.But there is hope for Bob, just as there was for Jim.
It isn’t that Bob lacks empathy. Like Jim, he just doesn’t know how to tap into it. According to a study done by Management Research, empathy is the third strongest predictors of effectiveness for senior executives. Empathetic leaders are keenly aware of their connection with other people and the broader communities in which they work.
In 2016, the Center for Creative Leadership did a study of over 6700 leaders. It was across 38 countries. It showed that enhanced empathy was linked to superior performance. Similar findings, linked empathy with leadership effectiveness emerged from this analysis of 15,000 high performing businesses.
Helping your business leaders develop empathy can be part of your role as an HR professional. To that end, I created a tool that can help you do just this. In my work with Jim, it was clear that he misread social cues. He wasn’t in touch with his own emotions and definitely misread his audience. This truly, truly bothered him.
He did not want to be this way. He wanted to be better attuned to the emotions of others. If nothing else, it would help him be a lot more effective. If he truly understood how others were feeling, he could immediately catch himself and change course. Without this insight though, he would be destined to continue being branded as insensitive.
The fact that he cared so much about reaching others’ emotions actually revealed his empathy. It was there, but hidden underneath his thinking brain, just like it is for Bob and the other leaders. That’s when I started to wonder. What if I could use Jim’s strong cognitive abilities to help him access his emotional brain in real time.
That inspired me to develop a technique that helps leaders, not only show more empathy, but actually become more empathetic. Allow me to walk you through this technique. If you would think about a conversation that you plan to have either later today or in the near future, it can be about any subject and it can be an in-person, phone or video conversation. Before and throughout the conversation, ask yourself this question: “How do I want this person to feel based on his or her interaction with me both in the moment and after the discussion?”
Now, imagine doing this before and during all of your conversation. Especially ones that you expect may trigger strong emotions in the other person.
That’s part one of the technique. It’s simple and effective for four reasons.
- It puts a wedge between your thoughts and your words.
- It creates an intention to be aware of and sensitive to the other person’s feelings.
- It’ll remind you that the words and the way that you speak them will have an emotional impact
- It calls attention to the power you have to influence another positively and negatively. It makes showing empathy a choice.
For three months, my empathy-in-training leaders asked, “How do I want this person to feel based on his/her interaction with me, both in the moment, and after the discussion?”
Once they become skilled at it, they go a level deeper and change the question slightly to “How does the other person want to feel based on the interaction with me in the moment and afterwards?”
This puts an emphasis on how the other person wants to feel, instead of how I want that person to feel. This question gets to the heart of empathy, the ability to understand and be sensitive to other’s feelings. This technique works both in one-on-one and group conversations.
Sometimes your internal clients need help repairing damage done by their insensitivity. For this, you can be the bridge. A number of years ago, I was referred to work with the head of US operations, responsible for commercializing a drug by a European biotech company. He was new to the company and the culture and was not fitting in. His gruff and direct approach was not well received by his European counterparts.
Nine people below him had quit their jobs, saying in exit-interviews that he was the cause. It was clear that if he didn’t change quickly, he was going to be the 10th person to leave the company. I conducted 24 interviews as part of his 360. Now you and I know that 24 is a ridiculous amount of interviews for a 360. You generally need about eight, maybe ten to get a solid understanding of the latest strengths and development opportunities. But the HR contact and CEO insisted that I meet in person with 24 people, both in the U S and at their headquarters overseas. I still believe the 24 is way too many interviews, but I learned something very valuable in the process.
I learned the power of the coach. HR professionals, and others help bridge the gap between someone’s heartfelt intentions and the impact of their informed behavior. While my role in conducting the 360 was simply to gather data, It was an intervention in and of itself, helping to start the repair process where ruptures had taken place.
While my client struggled to show empathy, he truly wanted to improve his relationships with others and was willing to change his behavior and communication style. Of course, with his job on the line, that probably helped. He began to understand the impact of his words and behavior. By teaching him how to show empathy, I helped this leader repair relationships with his colleagues and get in line to succeed.
Now I get it. You’re probably thinking, “this is all well and good. But what about when the leader doesn’t want to change? What about that leader who resists any effort to try to intervene?” Well, and quite frankly, I actually love these types of leaders.
Meeting them where they’re at to increase their motivation is one technique I use. By using the relationship of importance my clients have with their families. Whenever I get a leader who is extremely resistant to change, I tell these highly resistant clients that this process will not only help them become a better leader, but a better spouse.
If they’re married, a better spouse. If they have kids, a better parent. If they have neither, then a better human being. Now who doesn’t want that? It’s rare that a client doesn’t respond to that.
Be on the lookout for next blog that expands on our third tenet. “Humility.”
Dr. Jeff Kaplan is a business psychologist and executive coach who coaches executives and high potentials to lead with heart. Jeff helps leaders to work more collaboratively with others, recognizing that people are an organization’s greatest asset.