Try a little empathy

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Empathy, a component of emotional intelligence, is a crucial skill for navigating change. Demonstrating empathy with those experiencing difficulty deepens relationships, increases trust, and bolsters your ability to influence and lead others. Dr. Brene Brown gave an excellent Ted Talk where she broke empathy down to four attributes: 
  1. Perspective-taking
  2. Staying out of judgement
  3. Recognizing emotion in others
  4. Communicating that emotion
If you are looking for opportunities to demonstrate empathy, you needn't look very far right now. Many people are struggling with repercussions of the pandemic; financial, physical, or otherwise. More than that, many people are struggling in ways that may be different than how you are struggling. That means there are ample opportunities for empathy. For example: 

You manage a team of two employees. One of them is firmly in one of the high risk categories for COVID-19. They are scared of getting sick and are dealing with the isolation of living at home alone. Your other employee is not high risk, but has a partner who has been furloughed and is suffering financial hardship. You and your partner are both financially whole and are not in a high risk category. 

It would be easy for you to "feel sorry" for your two employees. But that would not serve to build the connection between you. In order to demonstrate empathy, you must truly see their perspective, without placing any of your own judgments on their actions. The hardest part comes when you have to recognize that both of your employees are feeling fear, albeit for different reasons. The final, most important step is to communicate back to those two employees that you recognize their fear, that you have felt fearful before, and that feeling fearful is difficult. 

Communicating emotion does not mean that you need to offer a response or advice. Thanking them for being willing to share, validating their emotions, and acknowledging that fear can be difficult to manage is enough. If you would like to offer help, it is best to ask whether they actually want to be helped. If they do want help, it is best to stick to offering resources and steer away from offering your personal experiences and opinions. 


You can watch an animated version of the Ted Talk above. 


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