I often joke with my fiancée, usually after returning an abandoned shopping cart from a grocery store parking lot, that “we need to reintroduce shame into our society.” That’s hyperbolic, but the message behind the joke is sound: We all need to be self-aware enough to understand the impact our actions have on others. The shopping cart problem is a simple one. What’s harder is the question of my willingness to bear a minor inconvenience to ensure someone else doesn’t have to. Choosing to operate with empathy and a prosocial mindset in the workplace can actually feel daunting.
In my own industry, management consulting, I’ve found empathy to be a critical tool for delivering successful projects. When shepherding an organization through a major change or process upheaval, it’s essential to recognize the human element behind your work: You are responsible for creating someone’s new normal. On the other hand, it can often feel so easy to backslide toward selfishness. Factors like stress, burnout or disaffection with a workplace can drive us toward mirroring behaviors that we would rightly shame if we saw them performed by others. Learning how to act our best, in spite of those challenges, is critical to creating an environment that is welcoming to all.
When we encounter a bump in the road, it’s easy to assume that someone else put it there. It’s harder to consistently trust in the best intentions of others. — Marc Cugnon
We’re not as self-aware as we think we are
Prevailing psychological research indicates that while most of us believe in our own self-awareness, a much smaller percentage are truly self-aware in a meaningful sense. That means the majority of leaders have work to do.
Self-awareness and empathy are intrinsically linked. My mother has always said that “being empathetic is being willing to meet someone where they are, not where you would like them to be.” I’ve tried to carry this lesson with me in my career and my personal life. However, if a lack of self-awareness leads to you consistently judging yourself by your own best intentions, and judging others by the outcomes of their actions, it can be difficult to live up to that philosophy.
To me, being self-aware means having an appreciation for the fact that my words and actions do not exist in a bubble. Good leaders need to operate with an appropriate sense of shame. Asking yourself whether you’d speak to a colleague in a particular manner, or react in the same way to an obstacle or challenge if you were doing it in front of your mother, wife, husband, etc., can be a powerful form of emotional policing. To revisit the grocery store analogy, self-aware people aren’t the type to hurl a shopping cart into an empty parking spot just because there’s nobody around to tell them not to.
Trust in the best intentions of others, even when it’s hard
Being empathetic as a leader is much easier if you assume that the majority of the people you interact with every day are trying their best. You can’t build a high-trust workplace without some faith in the inherent competence and goodness of the people around you.
Unfortunately, when we’re stressed, we have a tendency to paint ourselves as victims, and victimhood necessitates an assailant. Viewing challenges through that lens can be dangerous to how we perceive others and how we present as leaders. For example, in a low-trust environment, a leader’s first reaction to receiving an underbaked draft of a client deliverable or a messy pitch deck might be to question the capabilities or efforts of their team. Empathetic, self-aware leaders, on the other hand, operate with the assumption that their team is capable and ask questions like “Was my initial feedback on this deliverable clear enough?” or “Is this team equipped with the appropriate tools to succeed?”
Empathy requires discipline. It’s hard to consistently trust in the best intentions of others. It’s much easier, when we encounter a bump in the road, to assume that someone else put it there. While it can be tough, leaders have to be willing to give others the same grace that we give ourselves. Ultimately, doing so requires that we practice and develop both our self-awareness and our willingness to learn. Questioning your own initial assumptions can provide a powerful starting point toward curbing those negative instincts and building common ground.
Marc Cugnon is a management consultant specializing in the health care industry. His focus is change and communications strategy.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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