Empathy is the ability to experience and relate to the thoughts, emotions, or experience of others. Empathy is one step beyond sympathy, which is being able to understand and support others with compassion or sensitivity. It means being willing to put someone else’s interests above your own, with the result of creating increased good for the entire community.
True empathy translates into taking actions that demonstrate that you, as a leader, are more interested in supporting your employees than lording over them. It’s a form of servant leadership.
For example, the US Marine Corps is known for being so extraordinarily tight-knit that Marines willingly trust each other with their very lives. One secret of Marine Corps leadership is very simple: “Officers eat last.” It’s true. Go into any Marine Corps mess hall and watch the Marines line up for their chow. The most junior Marines eat first, followed by the rest in ascending rank order, with the leaders eating last. This practice isn’t set down in official regulations; the Marines just do it because of the way they view the responsibilities of leadership. Leaders don’t eat until everyone else on their team does. They sacrifice personal interests and self-serving actions to support the team.
Officers eat last is a philosophy of leadership; practiced literally and figuratively, it encompasses everything.
In a typical corporate environment, the idea that the senior leaders defer their own benefits to the junior ranks is, to be charitable, highly uncommon. But it’s an essential element of Marine Corps leadership, which has two goals: 1) Accomplish the mission; 2) Attend to the welfare of your Marines.
“Leaders with empathy,” wrote Daniel Goleman, “do more than sympathize with people around them: they use their knowledge to improve their companies in subtle, but important ways.” This doesn’t mean they agree with everyone’s opinions or they try to please everybody. Rather, they “thoughtfully consider employees’ feelings—along with other factors—in the process of making intelligent decisions.”
And as General Colin Powell said: “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
Sustained, market-leading innovation requires leadership that puts employees—the ones who are doing the innovating—at the forefront.
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