This follows the July 18th blog (Why is Empathy Important) and particularly as I ended that blog saying that “empathy enables more honest performance conversations” and that I’d leave that to another blog; well here we go…..
I’ve had three what I would call mentors in my life, and all of them challenged me and gave me the confidence to believe in myself and my dreams. So how did they get the best out of me?
Well all of them cared and derived fulfillment in seeing people grow, develop and achieve their dreams. All of them showed high levels of empathy, showed that they had only positive intent and with often complete disregard for any form of personal gain. When you are leading, managing, coaching, mentoring, parenting or just being a friend…….the more trusted your intent, the more open and honest you can be in your conversations, whilst sustaining or enhancing the quality of that relationship.
The right level of empathy
I’m not saying you can’t be direct and honest with people without empathy, indeed many people might think that it’s easier to be direct and honest if you adopt a dispassionate perspective; and for many leaders that can be relatively successful. My sense however is that many of us get ‘stuck’ between the two – showing a degree of empathy and yet struggling to be as honest as we’d like to be with feedback and challenge. This may be fine (on the surface) when things are going well, but when we encounter performance issues, it’s not effective.
So let’s consider three perspectives:
- The dispassionate, detached driver who is brutally honest with people
- The sympathetic manager who struggles with difficult conversations
- The leader who wants to see people be the best they can be
In my career I’ve experienced all three styles among my various line managers.
I don’t like Number 1’s style but I admit that it can be effective with many people and in certain circumstances. In my experience it doesn’t get the best out of people, but it can be expedient and get results (depending on how you measure). I’m not sure that this style sees the need to change.
Sympathy is not the same as Empathy and I’ve seen Number 2’s turn (momentarily) into Number 1’s through frustration at their own inability to have those “tough performance conversations” which makes for a bad experience for both the manager and the staff member. This style requires that people are largely competent and self-motivated, which by and large most people are. This style would love to be more comfortable with feedback but doesn’t know how (yet).
Showing empathy first
Number 3 is what this blog is all about. This leader (we’ll call her Anne) establishes her positive intent for people within the organisation, team or community (we’ll call it team from here on); and that is to help the team and all team members be as good and as successful as they can be. What’s more Anne says this directly….”these are the things I really care about“
Anne is very curious about team members’ hopes and dreams and she holds them accountable for their performance. She asks what each team member wants from their career/life, she shares her hopes and tells each individual what she needs from them. Anne also asks what each team member needs from her and she commits to tell them how they’re doing along the way. She invests time in social, informal interactions that show sincere interest, reaffirming her positive intent in the team member and she does this evenly with all team members.
And then when a team member (let’s call him Gary) falls short of the mutually agreed standard, Anne addresses this immediately by naming the issue and asking Gary if everything is OK (clarity about expectations, anything else going on? competing priorities, etc.) and reminds him of their mutually agreed standard. If falling short (of the mutually agreed standard) happens again, then Anne once again, addresses this immediately; but this time with an escalation that may require that she show her dissatisfaction and disappointment that Gary has fallen below his personal (and the mutually agreed) standards, and if necessary she may say something like “I’m so angry with you for not showing what you’re capable of! You know how much I want to see you succeed! What’s happening here?”
You can’t say things like “You know how much I want to see you succeed!” if you haven’t first invested your time in that person. Many leaders see little immediate need to do that, but when they need to have that tough conversation, it’s too late.
So if you can’t have that honest conversation with someone, there’s a reason and I suspect in many cases, it’s because that acknowledged, trusted positive intent doesn’t exist, or hasn’t been articulated. And the start of building trusted positive intent is with you the leader, by first showing sincere interest and empathy.
