Critical Leadership Trait – Empathy

Here are 4 Attributes of Empathy:
- Perspective taking
- Staying out of judgment
- Recognizing emotion in another person
- Communicating the understanding of another person’s emotions
Perspective taking focuses on walking a mile in another person’s shoes. You need to understand where they are coming from before taking any further steps. In many situations, many arguments could be avoided if you followed this step before going further.
Staying out of judgement pertains to not being too hasty when judging someone, you need to listen effectively and ask probing questions to gain the right information. Remember our first blog in this series was on the art of listening.
Recognizing emotion in another person includes understanding that if another person is truly frustrated or angry it will be difficult to try and rationalize with them at that moment in time. Having been in HR for 30+ years now, I have learned that many times employees just want a safe place to vent. They didn’t want advice, coaching, or an opinion. Often, an upset employee would come into my office, vent for 30 minutes and say thank you so much. It took me about 10 years to realize that all I needed to do in this situation was listen and nod my head occasionally. This was all the employee was looking for at the time.
Lastly, communicating the understanding of another person’s emotions. This goes back to our first leadership trait we discussed last month. Listening effectively to truly gain understanding is an art form. Salespeople, interviewers, all leaders need to be able to listen to understand, not just listen for the sake of listening.
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