All leaders need empathy because they are such a massive influence on their employee's lives. A leader or manager can make or break their team member's training, opportunities and career so they need to understand people.
And unfortunately, not everyone who is good at the technical skills (in all industries not just engineering) understands what it means to be a leader.
Listening to the team and understanding that everyone approaches different situations in the same way is the first step. Spending time with their team in one-to-ones, team meetings and project meetings is a great way to find out what the team think and what they need to succeed. Many managers allocate unclear tasks and expect their teams to get on with it, without asking how they are, what the workload is, whether they need any support or whether there are any roadblocks.
Thanks for sharing your insights on this important topic!
Right, you don’t know what someone is going through if you haven’t gone through a similar thing yourself.
That’s why I am able to relate with my colleagues a LOT better now than when I started with my career for example. Because I went through all of it already.
Glad you like the picture! I've put in an extra effort to create this visual, so I'm very proud of it :)
Thank you Gregor for bringing awareness of how important is empathy at the workplace. The biggest benefit of empathy imho is that it allows us to build connection with our teams and raise psychological safety.
This year I dove deep into empathy and learned a lot from different researchers. Brene Brown says that there are 2 types of empathy. Cognitive empathy and Affective empathy.
Affective empathy is the one where we try to wear the shoes from others, we try to feel what others feel, but many times we fail because we didn’t have the same experiences.
Instead of trying to feel or imagining how others feel, I rather to be super curious and try to understand the other person feelings (cognitive empathy). I seek for their perspective and reduce assumptions. The way I use is called “perspective getting”. Instead of saying or imagining how I would feel in that situation, I ask how that situation makes them feel. After understanding, I offer help. Please, let me know what you think.
Great article, love the graphics :-)
All leaders need empathy because they are such a massive influence on their employee's lives. A leader or manager can make or break their team member's training, opportunities and career so they need to understand people.
And unfortunately, not everyone who is good at the technical skills (in all industries not just engineering) understands what it means to be a leader.
Listening to the team and understanding that everyone approaches different situations in the same way is the first step. Spending time with their team in one-to-ones, team meetings and project meetings is a great way to find out what the team think and what they need to succeed. Many managers allocate unclear tasks and expect their teams to get on with it, without asking how they are, what the workload is, whether they need any support or whether there are any roadblocks.
Love the book recommendations :-)
Thanks Wendy! It’s a reason why empathy is a superpower :) Appreciate your insights and glad you like the books!
Btw I really liked the picture, I also see emotional intelligent people as super heroes. 🦸🏼🦸🏾♀️
Thanks for sharing your insights on this important topic!
Right, you don’t know what someone is going through if you haven’t gone through a similar thing yourself.
That’s why I am able to relate with my colleagues a LOT better now than when I started with my career for example. Because I went through all of it already.
Glad you like the picture! I've put in an extra effort to create this visual, so I'm very proud of it :)
Thank you Gregor for bringing awareness of how important is empathy at the workplace. The biggest benefit of empathy imho is that it allows us to build connection with our teams and raise psychological safety.
This year I dove deep into empathy and learned a lot from different researchers. Brene Brown says that there are 2 types of empathy. Cognitive empathy and Affective empathy.
Affective empathy is the one where we try to wear the shoes from others, we try to feel what others feel, but many times we fail because we didn’t have the same experiences.
Instead of trying to feel or imagining how others feel, I rather to be super curious and try to understand the other person feelings (cognitive empathy). I seek for their perspective and reduce assumptions. The way I use is called “perspective getting”. Instead of saying or imagining how I would feel in that situation, I ask how that situation makes them feel. After understanding, I offer help. Please, let me know what you think.