Lead With Empathy | Understanding other people’s emotions is one of the most trending soft or interpersonal skills in the modern workplace. Unfortunately, many business leaders still undervalue or underestimate the potential of empathetic leadership since it’s something they can’t quantify compared to hard or technical skills. However, leading with empathy has boosted productivity, improved external and internal communication, and fostered better collaboration among teams with reduced conflicts.

In this post, I’ll talk about the importance of empathy at the workplace, how it can foster business growth, and share the most prominent traits of an empathetic leader.

Defining Empathy from a Business Perspective

Empathy is the ability to detect, comprehend, and consider another person’s feelings, thoughts, and actions. Essentially, it is the act of putting yourself in another’s shoes and thinks about how they’re feeling before acting or reacting. This attribute or capacity holds in both personal and professional contexts to building genuine and productive relationships.

From a business perspective, anticipating the thoughts and feelings of your employees is an essential prerequisite for effective communication within the workplace in the modern age. An empathetic leadership environment can increase engagement and efficacy, thus, improving the workflow and relationships with customers and stakeholders. Empathy also fosters a network of mutual trust, which can protect companies from internal or external threats.

What Is an Empathetic Leader?

An empathetic business leader is a professional whose sole purpose is to serve others, helping them with their daily challenges and considering their feelings in decision-making. Even though they’re goal-oriented like most leaders, they will put their teams above and understand their situation, shortcomings, and issues so they can offer support and help them improve or recover. Overall, empathetic leaders make their teams feel safe and valued through interactions, operational strategies, and working styles.

Traits of an Empathetic Leader

An empathic leader is:

1. Aware

An empathetic leader is always present with their teams, taking the time to hear them out, ask questions, and invite questions. By showing that they’re genuinely interested in their employees’ well-being and lives, they can foster trust and loyalty.

2. Approachable

An empathetic leader is a person who wants to be seen as just another human being, regardless of their designation in the company. Instead of inflicting fear upon employees like many traditional leaders, they invite communication, especially from those looking for guidance, inspiration, or someone to hear out their ideas.

3. Flexible

An empathetic leader is adaptable, agile, and flexible when validating others’ ideas, opinions, and propositions. While most traditional leaders would tell their employees to know their place and let them think, these leaders will listen to your ideas and consider them if they sound interesting and feasible.

4. Influential

An empathetic leader has the power to empower and motivate teams to maximize their output and remain committed to the long-term objectives or take on new challenges. And instead of hoarding all the power, they will delegate authority, autonomy, and control to team members they trust and let them take charge of their respective tasks or projects.

5. Example Setters

An empathetic leader will promote their way of thinking within their teams by interacting with them to encourage the same behavior, such as team building, sharing, active engagement, and looking out for each other.

How Empathetic Leadership Can Foster Business Growth

1. A Greater Sense of Purpose and Belonging

Employees working in groups start behaving like a pack trying to achieve the same goals. They all feel included and appreciated by their supervisors and seniors, which can motivate them to improve their performances and output, potentially playing a bigger role in improving their success.

2. An Empowered Atmosphere

Modern employees like to build workplace relationships with their co-workers that revolve around mutual trust and support. Empathetic leaders can transform a group of individuals into a well-oiled machine that works harmoniously.

3. Happier Employees

A study by Forbes found that happier and healthy employees are nearly 20% more productive than their counterparts. This is true, especially for front-end employees that deal with customers. Happiness can have a greater impact on your brand’s perception as it significantly boosts mood and reduces stress levels, which in return can increase sales and improve relationships.

4. Relaxed Atmosphere

Employees in an empathetic environment feel more relaxed during their working hours, meaning they’re subject to less scrutiny and criticism from their managers. Knowing their company has its back can enable them to focus and improve their effectiveness and efficiency.

5. Higher Productivity

An empathetic leader provides an environment with safety and trust at its foundation. As a result, employees can increase efficiency and expand their responsibilities while executing what they were hired to do, thus, increasing their productivity.

Conclusion

Organizational success in the modern landscape can only be achieved by working from the inside out. With empathetic leadership, you can influence your team’s output and achievements, resulting in higher growth and revenue generation. The highest-performing companies in the world, such as Tesla, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Johnson & Johnson, also top the list of the most empathetic companies proving that even the big boys don’t have to be cutthroat to be competitive in the global, capitalist economy.

For more information related to technology and trending business practices, visit Percento Technologies today. We specialize in working with small businesses to help develop IT and web solutions that can support your business initiatives.