The Power of Empathetic Leadership: Why It Matters In today's World

Posted on Sep 01, 2022 at 01:09 PM

Empathetic leadership in corporate work is often overlooked or considered a secondary skill in leadership skills. This is a common mistake that causes many companies to fail and collapse.

Whether in your professional or personal life, empathy or empathetic leadership is one of the essential things in building a relationship with others.

Many leaders may think they possess the skill of empathetic leadership or empathise with their employees without a real and deep understanding of this skill.

We can say that empathetic leadership plays a large part in determining the success or failure of teams and companies of any size.

Below we'll take a closer look at what empathetic leadership means, explain in depth how important it is, and the most common traits you must possess to be an empathetic leader himself!

What is the concept of empathetic leadership?

Empathetic and committed leadership is leadership that can understand different points of view in the workplace and respect opinions; however, they may be contrary to yours. Empathetic leadership tries to show the best of the employee, but with respect for his abilities and limits.

Simply put, empathetic leadership means being aware of people's feelings and thoughts, understanding their needs, providing appropriate support, and understanding how they handle situations and trying to improve or respond to them.

The secret lies in the general concept of empathetic leadership, committed to putting yourself in your employee's shoes and living their condition. Thus, realising the impact of emotion on those actions and tasks. It (i.e. Empathetic leadership) relies on emotional intelligence skills to build a working relationship based on genuine trust.

In other words, empathetic leaders not only accept or understand the needs of their employees, but they must also meet, appreciate, and attempt to fulfil those needs.

The empathetic leadership method reduces job conflict and improves workers' general conditions to reach the desired company vision.

Now that we understand the concept of empathetic leadership, you must ask the following question:

What are the traits of an empathetic leader?

Leadership theories emphasise that there are many traits you must have to be an empathetic leader. Here is a list of the most popular of these traits:

1. Empathy:

Of course, empathy and feeling for others are the first characteristics of empathetic leadership. Empathetic leadership is built entirely on empathy for individuals, whether they are your customers, colleagues, or employees. This will aid in Building organisational Resilience in the company.

The working relationships between the leader and the employees, and between the employees themselves, are significant to ensuring the success of companies. When a leader shows empathy for others in their failures or losses, it boosts trust, makes employees view the leader as a friend and not just a leader, and the hierarchy becomes worthless compared to how well they treat the workplace. This creates a comfortable and exemplary work environment.

As an empathetic leader, even if you don't know the loss or failure of one of your employees, you know that everyone has a tough time. So let your employee know and always tell him that you are with him and support him in all circumstances.

Remember, it is great for an employee to feel supported by the people around him while facing the most difficult times, even in the workplace.

2. Flexibility

It's a second primary trait of an empathetic leadership trait. Empathetic leaders stick to their decisions, not their opinions if they find them wrong. Instead, they integrate the opinions of others with their decisions to reach the optimal solution. This builds excellent trust between leadership and employees.

Empathetic leaders appreciate the feelings and needs of others, deal with them quickly, and adapt to any emotional situation in front of them. Here are some examples of leadership flexibility:

• Estimating employees' conditions and personal problems.
• Consider all ideas and proposals without exception to determine the best one.
• Finding the perfect solution that all employees agree to, and not biasing one employee more than others.

3. Ease of communication

Empathetic leadership has been keen to improve leadership communication skills with employees, that is, that the communication between the leader and the employee is as accessible as possible and that the employee does not feel that communicating with the leader is intimidating. Instead, the leader is a person who exists to help others and provide them with all forms of modern support within the company's available means.

In short, being an empathetic leader means building democracy in your employer. So that any employee can come to you and express their opinions or problems at work with complete satisfaction and without any fear.

If the feelings of any employee are to the contrary, it is enough to increase the gap between him and the leadership, and the employee will feel that he is just a tool for carrying out tasks.

4. Avoid overwork

Indeed, if employees feel overwhelmed at work, this will lead to disastrous results such as employee resignation or many mistakes and may lead to the failure of the entire company. According to many studies, the reason for this is that when the employee reaches extreme fatigue, his return decreases dramatically, and most of his work becomes unperformed.

The importance of empathetic leadership lies in managing and detecting burnout faster and addressing it either by giving employees time off, reducing the number of tasks per employee or in a way that the leader sees fit to remove any burnout from his employees.

Remember that empathetic leadership says you should never make your employee say, "I'm so tired!!"

5.  Motivation 

The concept of empathetic leadership relates to the ability to motivate employees to bring out the best in them.

Empathetic leadership is not only about creating motivation; it is also about dealing with failure and a fiasco in a better way.

For example, if a company fails on a project, employees should not be blamed or yelled at; Rather, they should be motivated and encouraged to address the causes of failure to avoid it. This is how you exercise what we call empathetic leadership.

When you create shared motives in your employees, they will feel that you are their true leader.

Tips for showing more empathetic leadership

Add to the traits of Empathetic Leadership a handful of helpful tips:

1. The most important advice when dealing with your employees is to realise that your work is not more significant than their lives.
2. Empathetic leadership and management have dedicated the leader to being aware of and resolving employee business problems.
3. Help the employees in their personal lives; this is how you will build trust with them.
4. Share your feelings with your employees; it makes them feel good about you.
5. Listen deeply to your employees in all situations! The deep listening style builds respect and enhances the path of trust between you.
6. Conduct training for your managers and team leaders (and, if applicable, all employees) to follow an empathetic leadership mindset or culture.

In addition to the above tips, Leadership courses in UK allow you to learn the best empathetic leadership skills and show you the path to becoming a true leader.

Finally,

I think you now see that empathetic leadership is necessary and worthy of attention. As you focus on other leadership skills, remember that collecting empathetic leaders with good employees will create people who are creative on all counts.