Empathy in the workplace – A respectful understanding of what others are feeling - Cor Scheepers - Consultant @ pm.ideas
Let us first distinguish between the feelings of sympathy and empathy. It may be confusing, and the terms can even be used interchangeably.
Sympathy involves feeling sorry or pity for someone. Imagine Stephen sympathising for Willie, who has lost his job at a steel factory. Stephen acknowledges Willie’s situation and feels sorry for him. Sympathy is feeling for someone. It is more of an external expression of emotion; you cannot connect or understand their experience and feelings. Sympathy keeps a distance between the sufferer and the listener. A sympathetic approach only understands another person’s challenges from your own perspective. A sympathetic person understands what the other person is going through and feels sorrow or pity for them. It does not involve shared perspective or emotions.
Empathy involves understanding and sharing someone’s feelings. Consider a friend who has experienced the loss of a loved one. Another friend, who has also lost someone dear, can empathize with them. The empathetic friend not only understands but intimately feels the pain, drawing from their similar experience. Empathy is feeling with someone. It is an internal emotional response. Empathy allows a person to put themselves in another’s shoes and truly feel what the other person is feeling, with no judgement attached. Empathy helps you build and maintain connections with other people by digging below the surface of people’s statements and looking for non-verbal cues. Empathy is more productive than sympathy in the workplace since employees will feel more supported. At its most developed, empathy enables you to use that insight to improve someone else’s mood and to support them through challenging situations.
Stages of empathy
Empathy is one of the five key components of emotional intelligence – a vital leadership skill. It develops through three stages: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and compassionate empathy.
Cognitive empathy does not need to involve any emotional engagement by the observer. It is the ability to understand what the other person might be thinking or feeling. It is useful to managers in understanding how their team members are feeling. They can then decide what style of leadership would get the best from their team today. Sales executives can use it to gauge the mood of a customer, helping them to choose the most effective tone for a conversation. This is a mostly rational, intellectual, and emotionally neutral ability. It can be use by some people for negative purposes, to manipulate people who are emotionally vulnerable.
Emotional empathy is the ability to share the feelings of another person, and so to understand that person on a deeper level. It is also called ‘affective empathy’ because it affects or changes you. It goes beyond knowing how someone feels to creating a genuine rapport with them. This kind of empathy can be overwhelming. People with strong empathetic tendencies can become immersed in other people’s problems or pain, sometimes damaging their own emotional well-being. This is often the result when they do not feel able to resolve the situation. This emotional generosity burnout can be avoided by taking breaks, checking your boundaries, and strengthening your ability to cope in such a demanding role. Anyone leading a team will benefit from developing some emotional empathy. It will help in building trust between managers and team members, and to develop honesty and openness. Empathy is most valuable when it is combined with action.
Compassionate empathy is the most effective form of empathy. It involves not only having concern for the other person, and sharing their emotional pain, but also taking practical steps to reduce it. Consider when one of your team members is upset and angry because they delivered an important presentation badly. Acknowledging their hurt is valuable and affirming their reaction by showing signs of those feelings yourself even more so. Best of all is putting aside some time for them and offering practical support or guidance on getting through the situation and preparing for next time.
How to develop empathy at work
Keeping an eye out for signs of burnout. Burnout is the result of experiencing high levels of pressures or stress. Leaders who identify the signs of burnout in their employees can prevent it from affecting turnover or productivity. Regularly check in with team members to gauge how they are feeling about their current workload. Not only are you showing your employees that you care about their well-being, but this check-in can also help you spot signs of burnout early enough to prevent it.
Making an effort to help employees. Empathetic leaders understand that employees are juggling their work and personal life, which can sometimes cause stress and decrease productivity. By supporting your struggling employees, you are making your team members feel valued. Let your employees know that the line of communication is open and that they can share openly without fear of judgement.
Displaying compassion after personal loss. Personal loss can happen to anyone at any time. Leaders who show empathy and understanding during these times prove to their employees that their bond matters.
You may struggle to show empathy initially. You could be nervous about committing yourself emotionally or feel unable to do so. This does not mean that you are doomed to fail. To use empathy effectively you need to put aside your own viewpoint and see things from the other person’s perspective. Then, you can recognize behaviour that appears at first sight to be over emotional, stubborn, or unreasonable as simply a reaction based on your own prior knowledge and experience.
While you should practice empathy frequently, it is also important to set boundaries and continue to hold people accountable. It can be easy to overcorrect as you learn, getting caught up in other people’s struggles or allowing employees to constantly miss deadlines.
Each situation is unique, and it takes practice to learn how much empathy is appropriate in every circumstance. Ensure that you are still making good decisions and maintaining a standard of behaviour.
Remember: It is cool to be kind.
