Why Leaders and Managers Need Empathy for Success?

Daniel Goleman, a pioneering management thinker, has talked about three types of empathy:

1. Cognitive empathy: ability of the person to understand perspectives of others, also it is about ability to look into what and how the other person thinks;
2. Emotional empathy: ability of the person to sense what someone else feels;
3. Empathetic concerns: ability to sense expectations of others.

Before relating to others, we need to discover our own persons. No wonder, self-awareness is a master-key to empathy. Once we complete the journey of our self-discovery, we are ready to move on a more discreet path of mindful awareness –something widely practices by Buddhist monks spread across the world. Of late, a good number of leaders and managers from corporate world have started showing interest in mindful awareness. It enables us to have a constant and conscious look at the world around us. So if we see people in pain, we can relate it to our own experiences in the past. 

In spite of several sensitization sessions to help the trainees develop empathy towards the special children, many of the trainees, including myself, were not able to relate to them. However, one of the indents changed my whole outlook about differently-abled people. Once I was chosen as a volunteer to help the kids in off-site camp where they would be away from their families and under our care for almost 24 hours. In the morning, I saw one of the kids struggling to brush his teeth in the bathroom. But he was not able to hold the brush. I went close to him and cleaned his teeth with my own fingers. Although so far I had maintained a distance from the kids because they were always drooling and their clothes were unclean as they would drop edibles while eating. Anyway, I helped the kid in brushing and bathing. After a week, I was sent to his class for teaching practice. I had almost forgotten about the camp incident. As soon as I entered the class, that boy exclaimed with joy, ‘aren’t you the same bhaiya who cleaned my teeth’. I was so touched. This was totally unexpected. That day I realised that the special kids were also like us who would appreciate, be grateful and wish to connect to the other person. Thus I gained an insight into the mind of the special kids (cognitive empathy), touched by his feeling toward me (emotional empathy) and his need to relate to me as equal –I touched his heart and he touched mine (empathetic concerns).

Experience is the greatest tutor we can afford. Hence, we should always try to seek experiences which help us unfold our inner selves and become a better person who is able to relate to the other person without any sense of piety or guilt. In the organizational context, leaders and managers who go extra miles to understand others, relate to them on equal terms and appreciate their concerns are often successful. Such people get tremendous support from their colleagues in order to realise the vision and mission of the organization by stretching themselves and leveraging their unconditional discretionary efforts.