All across the US, leaders are investing more time, money and energy responding to employees’ needs and wants. Much of this collective investment is devoted to retaining our people and helping them cope with uncertainty in the world. Gone are the days where leaders focus more extensively on clients and customers, financial margin and market share, mission impact and quality, or performance and productivity. We are living through a major paradigm shift with our people. No single organization or leader is immune from it.
At the heart of this shift is employees’ desire for greater emotional awareness, understanding, and tangible support from their leaders and organizations. Exactly when the shift emerged is unclear but, from my experience, it predates the COVID pandemic. Think about the past 15 years. A global recession, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, environmental disasters, political movements towards authoritarianism, regional wars, mass shootings, continued racial injustice in our society, and COVID. No wonder then that we are being asked by employees to stretch and grow in ways that are almost unimaginable a few years ago.
In today’s world, empathy is the tide reshaping all things employee relations. But what exactly is empathy? It is the ability to sense another person’s emotions combined with the ability to imagine what that person might be thinking or feeling. On a very human level, it is the alignment of your head and heart when you feel or sense another’s emotions and understand their perspectives. Call it emotional intelligence 2.0.
A cursory review of research literature highlights 3 types of empathy. Emotional empathy is all about the feels–our responses we have to another’s emotions. As you might surmise, this type can span a range of human emotions in the moment. Cognitive empathy brings the head into the equation and centers on our thoughts and understandings of others’ perspectives. Compassionate empathy builds on emotion and intellect to shape our actions and is the sweet spot that we strive for every day.
Successful leaders understand that practicing empathy in the workplace is an artform. It requires discipline, humility, and learning over time. It too is heavily influenced by our human condition, individual relationships, and specific circumstances. These considerations determine which type(s) of empathy we employ in the moment. And while we may never get empathy right every time, our commitment here sends an important message to employees. We truly care about them as people–first and foremost.