Empathy: The Key to an Engaged Workforce

EMPATHY is understanding what others are feeling and why – a key aspect of emotional intelligence. Demonstrating empathy is one of the best ways to build connection and trust. We are drawn to people who show they understand and care about what we are going through. Empathy is also critical to inclusive leadership and high employee engagement. When employees feel like their leaders understand and care about their situations and challenges, they are more engaged in their work and give more discretionary effort (going above and beyond because they want to). It also puts them in a positive emotional state where they are able to use all parts of their brain, making them more creative and productive.

According to Daniel Goleman there are three types of empathy.

• Cognitive empathy – understanding how others see things and their point of view. It’s being able to see things from their perspective.
• Emotional empathy – having rapport and true connection with another person. It’s sensing in yourself what the other person is feeling.
• Empathic concern – not only feeling another person’s distress, but also wanting to help them and be there for them. It’s like a parent’s love for a child.

Brene Brown’s video demonstrates the difference between sympathy and empathy beautifully. She says that empathy involves four qualities: 1) the ability to see things from another’s perspective and recognize it as their truth; 2) staying out of judgment; 3) recognizing emotion in others; and 4) communicating their perspective and emotion. Empathy is feeling WITH people. It’s communicating, “I know what that’s like, and you’re not alone.” It requires vulnerability because we must connect with something inside of ourselves that knows that uncomfortable feeling. While sympathy involves distancing ourselves from another’s negative emotions. It’s feeling sorry for them or trying to make things better for them. Empathy fuels connection, while sympathy drives disconnection.

"Empathic, emotionally intelligent work environments have a good track record of increasing creativity, improving problem solving, and raising productivity." – Daniel Goleman

“Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance.” – Brené Brown

“A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.” – Daniel Goleman