Empathy for corporate leaders: Soft skills deliver hard results

When you think of the traits that make up a leader, certain words come to mind, such as decisiveness, charisma or vision. But what if you had a skill — a superpower, if you will — that allowed you to see into someone’s mind to better understand them? Imagine how beneficial and powerful that could be in negotiations, or in keeping a top performer from joining the competition?

What is this leadership superpower?

Empathy is probably not the word you were expecting. The word can elicit a simple pop-psychology notion of being in touch with people’s feelings. But in a leadership context, empathy is the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes. This not only puts you in their shoes, but also helps you understand what motivates them, what their goals are, what demands are being placed on them and where they are coming from. Empathy may seem a soft skill, but even for the most results-focused leaders, leveraging it within a business relationship can deliver hard, tangible results that pay enormous dividends if applied properly.

Imagine preparing to meet with your most important customer to negotiate a new contract. If you go in with your standard cookie-cutter presentation, you’ll probably get a cookie-cutter answer. But if you try to understand what’s important to your counterpart, how they perceive you, their goals and fears, and what their customer or boss expects from them, you’ll be in a better position to negotiate. And not just that, but you’ll also be better able to motivate, communicate and engage with that other person.

Consider the moment that we are in. At a time when our employees, customers and communities are more diverse than ever, I would argue there is no more important skill than empathy. Diversity isn’t just the right thing, it’s the smart thing. There’s no shortage of literature showing that more diverse workforces can be more creative, innovative and resilient than less diverse ones. Empathy provides a way to tune into, understand, navigate and nurture that diversity while at the same time addressing the challenges it can bring, such as implicit bias, racism and discrimination. To be clear, empathy is not just for those in the C-suite. Everyone throughout an organization can model this leadership trait. Imagine a supervisor who tells what they think is an innocuous joke, but in the ear of one of the team members, it comes across as offensive. Those tone-deaf, insensitive behaviors can lead your best talent, your top performers, to take their skills elsewhere (maybe even to one of your competitors), where they can grow in a more hospitable environment.

Tapping into this most human trait Each individual holds certain mental models that shape how we perceive the world around us. These models are based on beliefs about any given system, environment or interaction. Within organizations, they scale up to the concept of shared mental models. The idea is that if team members have a shared understanding of not only the work to be performed, but also the expected or acceptable norms and behaviors, then team members will be better aligned to collaborate and perform.

Empathy relates not only to awareness of others’ mental models, but also to understanding our own. Our personal mental models shape our biases and assumptions, limiting our full perception of the world. The simple act of becoming aware of your current mental models can lead to what may be desirable changes in thinking and behavior. Techniques such as cross-positioning and role-playing can help people understand their own mental models as well as other people’s. There are plenty of assessment, survey and feedback tools that can help as well.

Organizations are even using technologies such as simulation-based scenarios and the immersive power of virtual reality to step into one another’s shoes and see the world from a different perspective. There is no shortage of tools, techniques and training that organizations can use to learn about, practice and develop empathetic skills in their people.

Empathy may not be the answer in itself, but it is the prerequisite for any solution. With empathy, you can become a better communicator, negotiator, motivator, teammate and, most of all, leader.