Today morning leadership—servant leadership roadmap. We're talking about characteristic number five today: empathy. Thanks for joining me. This is Val. Welcome to my
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As a leader, one of your greatest strengths—believe it or not—is empathy. However, in talking about this, you're not allowing emotions to make business objectives personal, and that can be your greatest weakness. You do have to watch out. Remember, we're not making things personal, and we're not out to carry the weight of others' problems. Right?
Empathy, though, is your ability to understand someone's feelings. And as we talked about last week, this requires listening. Listening and empathy go together. These are two characteristics of servant leadership.
Developing empathy with the ability to manage your own emotions really demonstrates what's called emotional intelligence. Leaders need emotional intelligence. So developing the ability to recognize and manage emotions really helps evolve your professional abilities as well.
Keep in mind:
- Empathy is not a sign of weakness.
- It doesn't mean you'll give in to every concern of your team.
- Empathy does not replace our personality.
- It doesn't indicate that you assume the personal strife or emotional baggage of an individual.
Emotional intelligence is not a reflection of one's IQ, and it has nothing to do with intellect. All this to say: this doesn't mean leaders are perfect. Of course, every leader has good and bad days—we all do. Right?
It is important to consider how your mood or attitude can affect your team, though. For example, having an off-day significantly impacts your ability—your mood—to interact with others. You might need to adjust your schedule accordingly.
But empathy does provide the ability to develop trust with your team, and this is critical for a leader. Trust provides an avenue for your team to share concerns with you. If they trust you, they'll share concerns. If they don't, they won't.
Consider a team member that may proactively share information about a disgruntled individual, or notify you if they hear your project is missing a goal or something like that.
Part of effective leadership is taking the time to understand and address each individual's concerns. Sometimes individuals are just one event away—right?—from wanting to offload burdens. We want to offload our burdens on someone else, and that's okay up to a point. Sometimes we just want to share what's happening and not expect action or judgment. Sometimes you just want the ability to share with a trusted leader. So you have to recognize that and respond appropriately.
Timing is everything, as they say. Be mindful of how you interact with an individual. Leverage empathy to understand the position of each individual as it’s rooted in their own personality.
As a leader, ask for input from the individual doing the specific process before making changes that directly impact their daily activities. That's critical. The feedback you receive might provide valuable insights and help improve efficiencies. So listening and receiving input are important. Make sure they know you have their best interest in mind—that you're not just checking up on them. Remember, we talked about micromanaging last week. Nobody likes to be micromanaged.
Now, I'll address two questions:
- Why is empathy important in leadership?
- What's in it for you as a leader?
As a leader, empathy creates a sense of trust that your team will develop with you, strengthening your leadership. Leadership is all about trust. This leads to greater collaboration and engagement—which is what we want as leaders. Remember: the higher your team engagement, the higher your team will perform.
Additional benefits of empathy for leadership:
- Ability to understand the root cause of disengagement or poor performance.
- Ability to support struggling individuals to help them succeed.
- Leaders succeed by empowering others.
- You'll enhance professional relationships.
Empathy gives you a window into your team. Developing empathy begins with actively listening to individuals when they speak. Listen beyond what they're saying—focus on how it's said. What’s their body language? Hear excitement, anger, frustration, etc.
Next, put yourself in your team's shoes. The key to empathy is being able to walk in someone else's shoes. You've kind of been there; you've done that, so you can relate. But this requires life experience to convey. Understand their challenges and victories. Why are they hurting? That's important.
Encourage team members to share how they feel about their situations. Ask yourself: "Why do they feel that way?" And again, you have to listen to do that—that leads to empathy.
Quick recap:
- Empathy is vital for servant leaders. It helps you gain insights into how individuals subconsciously/emotionally react to initiatives or situations.
- Through empathy, you support relationships with team members and build trust.
- You can identify struggling individuals and help set them up for success.
- Leaders empower and uplift others. That’s what we’re about—"Love Life, Lifts Everyone."
The servant leader is humble—not humbled to be here today—but a leader who focuses on empathy, meets the team's needs, and puts the team first.
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Join me Wednesday for a new series on John Maxwell’s Thinking for a Change—with my perspective. Have a great Monday, guys! Bye-bye.