What is Empathic Leadership?

 

Empathic Leadership

The style of empathic leadership is based on the understanding that it is impossible to connect with or to motivate followers if you cannot envision life from their perspective. This realisation has led to empathy becoming a highly sought-after leadership quality. Furthermore, empathy is now mentioned in recruitment descriptions and business schools are teaching students about its benefits. Although empathic leadership appears to be a recent style, when we take a closer look at some of the most iconic leaders of the last century, like J.F.K., they were reported to be emotionally intelligent and in particular: empathic.

Evidence

Studies have also shown that empathic leaders create higher profits and this has been confirmed across national and cultural boundaries. Those led by an empathic leader are more committed and passionate about their work, and report high job satisfaction. As a consequence, retention rates are higher and recruiting talent is easier.

Relationships

The empathic leader enjoys closer relationships in the workplace and is a popular and respected leader and this ultimately elicits more power. With more understanding of others’ perspectives, they are better placed to address their team’s and customer’s needs, and to recognise the talent and potential at their disposal. Despite this, empathy remains undertrained and under-developed within 21st century organisations. Moreover, this deficit is reported to be especially true in western society.

Lack of Empathy

A lack of empathy is often expressed through behaviours and attitudes like bullying and disengagement. A toxic climate evolves, often described as a climate of fear. Empathic leaders are likely to be more engaged with their role within an organisation due to the deeper satisfaction the style brings. Their efforts and empathy are contagious and spread through an organisation and in doing so improve the safety of the climate. In a safe space people are more ready to volunteer ideas and opinions, which makes them feel valued and the leader feel less alone. Safe environments also have the ability to heal; and to maintain wellbeing; which means fewer sick days.

Advantages

It is widely thought that the advantages of empathic leadership may be greater where the demands are higher, and there is a positive correlation between hard demands and so-called soft skills. The ‘faster’ the workplace the greater the need for empathy! Few domains offer tougher and faster moving challenges than the military. Interestingly, empathy’s role in leadership is being valued here too, as John McDougall, a West Point graduate and veteran of conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, explains:

“Leadership is not easy. Each individual that we work with is a complex set of personality and experiences, hopes, and fears. While every good leader tries to get to know his or her soldiers, only the truly exceptional ones go beyond the surface level. They pay close attention to verbal and nonverbal cues, and ask tough questions to better understand the experience, perspective, and feelings of individuals. In short, they have honed and applied the skill of empathy, a critically important but often misunderstood element of leadership.”

John McDougall, Chaplain (Maj.) John McDougall, U.S. Army

You can read more about of John McDougall’s perspective in the November-December 2019 Military Review, available here McDougall-Empathetic-Leadership

Peter Sear, Founder, The Empathic Minds Organisation

 

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal

reminds us that once we understand the importance of empathy in leadership, we have to have the discipline to maintain it.

Click on the play button to watch the video.

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal

reminds us that once we understand the importance of empathy in leadership, we have to have the discipline to maintain it. Click on the play button to watch the video.

Empathic Communication

  Communication is possible without empathy, but a non-empathic communicator will never be as effective as they could be. Empathic communication is characterised by listening, compassion, concern, and support. Such efforts are noticed and appreciated. They have a...

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What is Empathic Leadership?

  Empathic Leadership The style of empathic leadership is based on the understanding that it is impossible to connect with or to motivate followers if you cannot envision life from their perspective. This realisation has led to empathy becoming a highly...

read more

What is Empathy?

So what is it? When we talk about empathy we are focusing on a way of understanding another’s perspective by vicariously experiencing their emotions. This is often referred to as ‘putting oneself in another’s shoes’. However, this phrase can be misleading, for we need...

read more

What is Empathy?

So what is it?

When we talk about empathy we are focusing on a way of understanding another’s perspective by vicariously experiencing their emotions. This is often referred to as ‘putting oneself in another’s shoes’. However, this phrase can be misleading, for we need to experience things as the other person rather than as our self in the other person’s shoes. Once this is achieved, we feel what they feel and can begin to process what we are learning about how they feel. All of this happens before we respond and we can of course choose our response. Our response may not always be a compassionate one. As humans we are likely to respond pro-socially, however, this response is not assured. Taking the perspective of a competitor, for example, may inform a strategy against them that is anything but pro-social. Thankfully, most of the time we employ empathy to make connections and grow our relationships. 

Relationships

All kinds of relationships can be improved with empathy, and these may be in social settings, or in professional arenas between leaders and followers, or employees and customers. Moreover, relationships can be enhanced to bring a team closer together. Empathic individuals are psychologically in tune with others’ feelings and perspectives, and whatever the situation, this hands them a clear advantage.

Cognitive and Affective

Psychologists have separated empathy into cognitive empathy where one understands the feelings and intentions of another, and affective or emotional empathy, an automatic feeling response that  occurs before conscious awareness. Cognitive empathy is a more controlled process where the empathiser is likely to suffer less emotionally, if at all. An example of cognitive empathy is mentalising or perspective taking, which represents motivated attempts to understand without experiencing the emotions or the other.

Nuances

The word empathy is often linked with other words that are thought to describe similar things and so distinguishing them is important. Firstly, Sympathy, which describes concern for another person’s emotional state, without it having impacting one’s own. To sympathise is to feel for but not like another.  Secondly, Compassion,  a feeling that arises after witnessing another’s suffering, which motivates a desire to help. Whereas empathy is about understanding the feelings and perspective, compassion is focused on a concern for the plight of an individual. Compassion is feeling for and not with the other. It has been said that compassion consists of sympathy and, thirdly, pity. Pity is a feeling of sadness or sympathy for someone’s unhappiness or difficulty. It is worth remembering that both compassion and pity are more closely related to sympathy, as they are concerned with feelings towards someone’s plight rather than shared feelings or experiences of it. These other words describe valuable aspects of humanity, but it is empathy that initiates understanding and therefore connection.

Peter Sear, Founder, The Empathic Minds Organisation

 

Brené Brown explains more

To make things clearer, here’s Brené Brown explaining the differences between empathy and sympathy, at the RSA:

Why Empathy?

To make things clearer, here’s Brené Brown explaining the differences between empathy and sympathy, at the RSA.

What is Empathy?

So what is it? When we talk about empathy we are focusing on a way of understanding another’s perspective by vicariously experiencing their...

read more