Empathy

Last Monday, I attended an internship preparation workshop webinar called ‘Leadership - Rising from Zero to Hero’ by CITrA as part of the requirements for those going for internship next semester. Throughout the one hour talk, the invited speaker, Mr. Raj Kumar Paramanathan who is a partner from CnetG Asia, talked about the importance of cultivating leadership from the ground up as a university student. A topic which I’m most interested in as I aspire to make leadership a forte of mine in the future.

One of the main contents of the talk that resonates deeply with me when it comes to leadership is when the speaker answers the audience’s question on how to deal with stubborn people as a leader.

I’m sure many of us has been a leader at least once at some point in our lives, may it be for a society, club or project, or something as simple as a group assignment. I’m a staunch believer that although not everyone is naturally born as a leader, everyone has some qualities that leaders possess and can strive to be one. However, not all can be effective leaders, as effective leaders have in them extra ingredients that not every leader possesses.

According to Mr. Kumar, one of these extra ingredients is empathy. Empathy in this context means being able to understand and sympathise with the needs of others in order to inspire followers or elicit loyalty. It is the ability and capacity to identify and recognise other’s situation, feelings and motives. In answering the question, he mentioned that stubbornness is not inherent within people. Instead, it may come as a result of disagreements with the leader’s personality or manner in handling things.

An empathetic leader will try to build rapport in order to crack the code as to why they are stubborn in the first place, rather than resorting with an authoritarian and unyielding approach. A generous dose of empathy can help leaders to engender trust and build bonds, to connect with their subordinates in human ways, thus eventually motivate and lift them from the stubbornness state. Empathy allows leaders to build and develop personal yet professional relationships with those they lead. You would want your followers to feel valued and cared about. Convince and justify to them, that there is a reason for them to heed your commands and follow your lead.

There is this huge misconception surrounding empathy that it is often equated with weakness. I highly disagree with the old-school notion that great pains should be taken to avoid looking ‘soft’ or projecting anything but strength. Lowering your ego to listen to people does not in any way signify that you are weak. In fact, showing empathy to your subordinates requires much more strength than being punitive, as it means truly making an effort to stop and think for a moment about another person’s perspective in order to begin to understand where they are coming from. Not everyone has that emotional capacity to care for the concern of others, which is why empathy is a much sought-after leadership trait. To me, empathy is a beacon of true strength and stability rather than the facade of effective leadership forged through domineering means and iron-fisted approach. Granted, being a leader sometimes mean that you need to be the bad guy at the right time. But most of the time, being the nice guy works and should always be the strategy that comes first.

Another popular misapprehension towards empathy is on how it means agreeing with others’ feelings, ideas and perceptions 100%. It is about time for us to get rid of the mindset that caring for others means that we would always agree with the person, that we would have to change our position. Empathy does not require you to change your values, beliefs or preferred approaches to doing things. Rather, it requires you to understand that other people can, and will sometimes have different ideas about such things – and that’s okay. Only by tuning with what that person is going through and be in the same wavelength as them, that we can respond in a manner that acknowledges their thoughts, feelings or concerns. Relating back to the question at hand, sometimes all these stubborn people need is for their opinions to be heard and be taken into account for. To be understood and valued.

Encountering stubborn people is almost a part and parcel of leadership experience. From this sharing, I learnt that it is an ability that is well-worth cultivating. Even if empathy does not come naturally to some of us and can be difficult to harness, as stated by Mr. Kumar, it is something that we can still develop along the way. Empathy is indeed a valued currency. It should not be selective, rather it should be a daily habit. I end this post with this appropriate and thought-provoking quote:

“You may judge of a man’s character by the persons whose affection he seeks. If you find a man seeking only the affection of those who are great, depend upon it he is ambitious and self-seeking; but when you observe that a man seeks the affection of those who can do nothing for him, but for whom he must do everything, you know that he is not seeking himself, but that pure benevolence sways his heart.”