“A little empathy goes a long way…”. That was my closing statement to an email that I sent to a teacher that decided to send me a fully loaded email, questioning my daughter’s exam result. “She is underperforming and as the parent you need to do something about it, here are some suggestions… I advise your daughter reviews her attitude to learning.” I was shocked to read this message coming from the Head of Department, who had never met my daughter.
I went into my daughter’s room to find her crying, really hurt by the implication that she didn’t care about her learning. Moments later we received her end of term report, from her actual teacher, providing the nicest comments about how hard she works, the high quality of her homework, her enthusiastic interactions in class – let alone the fact she was nominated the star of that subject for two months running.
I decided to write to this teacher: “I realise you don’t know my daughter, and I very much hope this is just a copy and paste email that you’ve sent to all parents whose children didn’t achieve the expected outcome…”.
She replied: “I am not suggesting that your daughter is not a conscientious student. However, unfortunately, despite her efforts, she has under-achieved her target grade”.
I continued: “In going through her notes and flash cards, she did very well in her recall of most topics over the weekend. Upon further discussions, we found the root cause of her poor performance to be exam anxiety. Not all children do well under pressure, especially considering their journey of learning over the last couple of years. This is by no means a justification of her poor performance, and I’m just merely proposing that a little empathy goes a long way, certainly with students whose efforts and overall test results don’t seem to align.”
And the same applies to leadership. Rather than being too quick to judge, let’s ask them if they are OK. Let’s not crash them and make them feel they are not good enough. Instead, let’s aim to lift them up, find the root of the issues and provide support where needed so they can tap into their potential. Setbacks are a given, how we help them handle it will determine how they build their character moving forward.
We all make mistakes, and we all have bad days. Don’t be too quick to react, but rather seek to understand the struggles, and offer help. As the popular saying goes, people may not remember what you say, but they will remember how you made them feel.
Empathy is all about understanding what another person is going through — trying to put oneself in the shoes of another and feeling compassion for what they might be experiencing.
We need to use empathy in order to create an environment where employees feel safe and empowered to share, knowing that you will understand and respect their point of view. We certainly can’t solve every problem, but employees should leave your office feeling they’ve been heard.
As a leader, you influence the emotions of your people. And emotions are a powerful driver of human behaviour. When your employees feel understood, it results in optimism and trust – and ultimately better performance.
If your employees are quiet in meetings, afraid to speak up for fear of being humiliated or rejected, people avoid working on projects with you, or your first move is always to defend, blame or use your position to insert the “my way or the highway”, it is time you consider learning about the incredible benefits of empathy – from higher productivity, better retention, increased engagement and creativity that goes through the roof, just to name a few.
When you set up an environment that allows people to feel understood, great things can happen. We need to help build the leaders of tomorrow with the insight, resilience and confidence they will need to tackle the challenges ahead. We don’t have to be experts in mental health in order to show we care and are paying attention. We can also help them build empathy by being more empathetic ourselves. The world can surely do with more empathy.
To your success,
Isabel
Isabel is an experienced Peak Performance Strategist with over 20 years of international work experience holding senior positions within the hospitality industry in countries around the world, as well as Executive and Leadership coaching, mentoring and training. She specializes in high performance strategy, leadership development and building organizational culture to help leaders and their teams learn, grow and succeed. Isabel is passionate about helping empower business leaders with the mindset, performance, skills and strategies that they need to get ahead. More available on www.isabelvalle.com
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