Empathy is a term that denotes compassion, kindness, understanding, emotional attachment, etc. Gone are the days when leaders were autocratic or democratic as the current times demand leaders to be transformational, empathetic, and evolving. Empathetic leadership helps the leaders to understand the needs of their team members and get the awareness of their thoughts and feelings. Empathy is usually a soft skill and is not taught at b-schools or companies. However, having an empath mindset helps leaders to deal with very emotional team members and encourage them to perform better at the workplace and even improve their personal spheres of life.
Empath leadership style helps employees to follow their leaders and do more purposeful work. For example, we will take a case of a company where the Chief Editor was quite dominating and followed perfectionism like anything. His lack of tolerance and impulsive nature led his team members to leave the workplace even before they could complete six months or one year at the work.
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The Chief Editor had bad timing and was really poor in giving feedback to his team members. He would lash at anyone if they made even a single grammatical error and he would also expect other team members to follow in his footsteps of working till late at night at the office or doing anything to complete the client’s work. This irked many of his team members who couldn’t understand his kind of professionalism. They would be silent when he would criticize them but behind his back, they would express all their suppressed anger to others.
One day when the Chief Editor heard all that his team members thought of, he cried the whole night thinking of how his influence on his team has been taken in a bad light. His idea of give feedback and improve their work so that he along with the team could reach the top position. But his punctuality and work ideologies were thought like that of dictatorship. He thought of resigning from his workplace but he was stopped by his reporting authority who asked him to sign up for team management and empath leadership skills classes.
He learned from books and real-life case examples of how leaders try to sit down with their subordinates and understand their situations. He understood how he can be friendly and authoritative to get the work done at the same time without hampering his relationships. He understood that good interpersonal skills and positive work culture can go a long way in building a very good team at the workplace. He decided to note down the birthdays and anniversaries of his team members only to wish them and gift them with something meaningful that they can cherish throughout their lives.
He even decided to hear each team member out like how they feel at work, what is stopping them to give their best, and also what are their ideas to progress at their jobs during lunch breaks and even spending time outside the office to celebrate special days. His idea of empath leadership helped him win the hearts of his people and also earn a good name in the company.
