Empathetic Leadership: Why should you care?

It has become a need of the hour for companies to hire and develop more effective managers and leaders capable of moving their organizations forward during good and challenging times. That requires looking beyond traditional strategies for managing, developing, and cultivating the skills most important for success.
One of those skills, perhaps unexpectedly, is empathy - a vital leadership competency.
Empathetic leadership means having the ability to understand the needs of others and being aware of their feelings and thoughts. Unfortunately, it has long been a soft skill overlooked as a performance indicator. Our research, however, has shown that today's successful leaders must be more "person-focused" and able to work well with people from varying teams, departments, countries, cultures, and backgrounds.

4 Ways to Show More Empathetic Leadership
Displaying empathetic leadership can take many shapes and forms. We recommend leaders take the following 4 steps to show greater empathy in the workplace and with their colleagues and direct reports.

1. Watch for signs of burnout in others.

Work burnout is a real problem today, and it comes at greater risk during intense stress and pressure. Many people are stressed, putting in more work hours than ever before and finding it difficult to separate work and home life.
Managers skilled at empathetic leadership can recognize signs of overwork in others before burnout becomes an issue that results in disengagement or turnover. This might mean taking a few extra minutes each week to check in with team members and gauge how they're handling their current workload and helping them recover from overwork.

2. Show sincere interest in the needs, hopes, and dreams of other people.

Part of leading with empathy involves understanding each team member's unique needs and goals and how to best match work assignments to contribute to both performance and employee satisfaction. Team members who see that their manager recognizes them in this way are more engaged and willing to go the extra mile.

3. Demonstrate a willingness to help an employee with personal problems.

Lines between work and personal life are becoming increasingly blurred. Empathetic leaders understand that their team members are dynamic individuals who are shouldering personal problems while having to maintain their professional responsibilities. They recognize that it's part of their role to lead and support those team members when they need it most.
Keeping open lines of communication and encouraging transparency is a good way to foster psychological safety and help team members feel comfortable sharing when it's necessary.

4. Show compassion when other people disclose a personal loss.

Real connections and friendships at work matter, and empathetic leadership is a tool that managers can use to establish bonds with those they're privileged to lead. We've all been through personal loss, so even if we can't relate to the specific loss our team member experiences, we can act empathetically and let them know they're supported.

How Organizations Can Encourage Empathy in the Workplace

Some leaders are naturally more empathetic than others and will have an advantage over their peers who have difficulty expressing empathy. Most leaders fall in the middle and are sometimes somewhat empathetic.

Fortunately, it's not a fixed trait. Empathetic leadership can be learned. If given enough time and support, leaders can develop and enhance their empathy skills through coaching, training, or developmental opportunities and initiatives.
Organizations and HR leaders can encourage a more empathetic workplace and help managers improve their empathy skills in several simple ways.

1. Talk about empathy in the workplace to signal its value.

Let leaders know that empathy matters. Many managers consider task-oriented skills such as monitoring and planning to be more important in controlling the performance of their team members. But research shows that understanding, caring, and developing others is just as important, if not more important, particularly in today's workforce.

Explain that giving time and attention to others fosters empathy, enhancing your performance and improving your perceived effectiveness.

2. Teach listening skills.

To understand and sense what they're feeling, managers must be good listeners, skilled in active listening techniques, who let others know that they're being heard, and express understanding of concerns and problems.

When a manager is a good listener, people feel respected, and critical trust in the team can grow. To show the highest levels of empathy in the workplace, managers should focus on listening to hear the meaning behind what others are saying by paying attention to not only the words being said but also the feelings and values being shown through nonverbal cues such as tone, pace of speech, facial expressions, and gestures.

3. Encourage genuine perspective-taking.
Managers should consistently put themselves in the other person's place. For managers, this includes taking into account their employees' personal experiences or perspectives. It also can be applied to solving problems, managing conflicts, or driving innovation. It's very helpful to understand the role social identity plays for both yourself and others.

Empathy is particularly an imperative for effective organizational diversity initiatives.

4. Cultivate compassion.

Support managers who care about how others feel and consider the effects of business decisions on employees, customers, and communities. Go beyond the standard-issue values statement and allow time for compassionate reflection and response. Remember, your employees care about social responsibility; your organization should too.

5. Support global managers.

Being empathetic leaders who can collaborate across boundaries is especially important for those working in global or cross-cultural organizations. Leading a multicultural team requires cultural intelligence and the ability to understand people who have very different perspectives and experiences.

And as the data we shared above shows, when managers hone their empathetic leadership skills, they improve their effectiveness and increase their chances of success in the job. Empathetic leaders are assets to organizations, partly because they can effectively build and maintain relationships - a critical part of leading organizations anywhere in the world.

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This release was published on openPR.