Empathetic Leadership

 Empathetic Leadership :

Empathy means being able to understand the perspective, reasoning & reactions of other people around, more importantly as is, without allowing it to run through our expectations or stand points.

In layman's language to be in their shoes & feel exactly the same.

Since the time of Industrial Revolution, the work force required to keep up with the demand on jobs has been told and taught to remain brutally professional, but yet with the IT revolution, abundance of information & knowledge are at the disposal of these workforce & hence their needs & intellectual levels have changed.

And that makes today's workforce smarter, more intelligent & practical, & hence they need more emotional support & bonding than ever before.

What is most difficult in the empathetic approach is to maintain the boundary, as much as possible the Leader may try to remain connected without being attached to the concerns & problems of the teammate that they are trying to uphold. And yet one cannot expose these boundaries, or else the teammate who is sharing their sufferings or personal problems may realize that their emotional low state was manipulated & the efforts to be in their shoes may even end up giving different results entirely.

So basic Do's & Don'ts to keep in view while practicing Empathetic Leadership:

A) Have patience to hear the full story, without interruptions, fully focused, no multitasking, eye contacts, allowing yourself to flow through the experience, that is because mostly the teammates are already considerate & have adapted to whatever given situation they might be in & all that they are looking forward is to be heard.

B) Seek their consent before initiating any attempts to share your own perspective or understanding, do they really want to hear your own similar story? Do they really need any advice? As then they will have to do the same thing you were trying for them, while their pain or situation is real & yet not completely healed, by making attempts to share our own story you may now compulsorily borrow their own shoulder to lean upon.

C) If they are sincerely seeking any advice, ask them if they have already discussed the subject matter with the other people involved, that may be their family members, colleagues or friends, once again encourage them to do the talking & share what was the opinion & suggestions that were given by either of them.

D) Sometimes it is possible that either they are seeking your advice to validate what they have already been told by others, or may be they are seeking validation on their own stand point that may be differing from all the advices that they have gotten so far, so once again try to hear out what they are thinking to do.

E) During all these proceedings be very careful to remain invested in analyzing their energy levels that they are putting in their words, as well as choice of words, as that is what may help to determine if you are sincerely helping them or becoming an enabler. It is your right to make that realize that you are willfully volunteering into hearing them & if need be then to discuss a way forward, at any point in time you can make a different choice irrespectively.

F) Do not allow anyone to feel comfortable to approach you with an intention of downplaying any other teammate.

G) While sharing their situation do not allow them to get aggressive & start using abusive or foul language.

H) As much as you may get caught up in making attempts to get connected to their concerns, make sure that you do not get carried away & get attached to your solutions & their aftermaths, never follow up on any such personal discussions, unless they are willingly coming to share them with you.

I) Never Ever discuss A person's problems with B person, at least not within the team, as if the B person was reasonable enough than that A person must have already discussed their concerns with that very B person.

J) Never bring up examples of any other teammate as a part of experience or solutions.

K) Over 60% of concerns being brought to your desk will end up going back to monetary requirements, so either you must have a system within your office & jurisdiction to lend money or have a sum kept aside from your personal account that you can afford to churn it over for loans, because if your are not someone who is willing to lend money, your are automatically "Unempathetic''.

L) Have a mindset to let go more than what you can afford, as when you have already given your listening ear to someone for their concerns, if you are unable to give them their expected solutions, then please note that you have been indirectly communicated about the state of their mind that is under conflict & hence pardon their mistakes & errors in advance, while remain considerate & liberal on their deliverables.

M) With experience, learn & try to understand the needs & expectations of the teammates when practicing the Empathetic Leadership role, your emotional intelligence will become unparallel while the team will keep thriving to get results for you.

Above all, do not hesitate to go out for a dinner, movies or some picnic, let the expenses be share as per everyone's capabilities, if families can join do so, it is not necessary that we only remain objectively focused on work & profits, the place & people with whom we spend 1/3 of a day, everyday is more than a family who is inevitably playing a key role to shape our life.