Empathy works, if you lead with the right kind

Your best performer asks for a raise and tells you why: they need the money. You know they deserve it, and you also know company policy will not allow one before the end of the year.

It sounds like the easiest conversation in management. How it goes depends almost entirely on the kind of empathy you bring into the room. Today I’d like to elaborate on that theme, based on an article I published with Dr Theano V Kalavana on how leaders use empathy.

Four ways to say no

Some managers recite the rule. Raises are decided once a year, here are the criteria, nothing can be done now. The employee thanks them and leaves deflated, not because they were refused but because their manager showed no sign of valuing them as a person.

Others become the friendly colleague. They say how sorry they are, how much the employee deserves it, and promise to do everything they can. The employee walks out delighted, carrying a promise the manager may not be able to keep. The warmth is real. The boundary is missing, and when a problem appears these managers tend to the feelings rather than the problem.

A third kind understands the employee well and feels for them too. They say they fully understand, perhaps because they have been through the same thing, and promise to sort it out. But they gloss over the rules, never explain the year-end timing or the criteria, and ask for time without giving a date. The employee leaves hopeful, but with no plan.

Leaders like this tend to spend their days in endless conversations and in guessing how people will react, and they usually need a firmer colleague beside them to carry decisions through.

The fourth kind thanks the employee for raising the issue and acknowledges what they have achieved. They explain how raises work, when they are decided and what criteria apply. They say that if the employee carries on as they are, the salary should rise when the time comes, and they finish by asking how that sounds.

The employee still needs the money, and says they understand. There was no raise that afternoon. There was a path, and there was respect.

Two kinds of empathy

Psychologists split empathy in two. Affective empathy is feeling what the other person feels: “I feel your pain.” Cognitive empathy is understanding their situation: “I see what you mean.” Cross the two and you get four styles of leader, and those four managers are one of each.

The first, the manager, had neither. The second, the friendly colleague, had feeling without understanding. The third, the emotional leader, had both but let feeling steer. The fourth, the inspirational leader, had understanding and kept the feeling in check.

There has been a bit of a debate as to empathy – some see it as the essence of leadership and others as a trait that makes you a weak leader as it focuses on the feelings rather than the business or actions. Both miss the point, because as in the example above not all empathy is equal.

A review in the UK medical journal The Lancet found that warm, friendly, reassuring doctors tended to get better results than formal, distant ones, though the evidence was mixed, and the same may hold in the workplace.

But empathy without perspective has a price. In a study of roughly 300 general practitioners, Lamothe and colleagues found burnout was linked to strong concern for patients combined with weak perspective taking, while doctors who could also see the situation from the patient’s side were better protected.

Executives, whose decisions can feel just as heavy, may face the same risk. Leaders who feel too much struggle to make unpopular calls. Leaders who feel too little lose their best people.

Empathy is a muscle

The good news is that empathy is not a fixed trait. It can be trained, and the practice is surprisingly concrete. Listen to understand, and say “This must be hard” rather than “If I were you, I would …”.

Keep a little distance, as if you were watching the story on a screen. “It sounds like a very difficult time for you” works better than “I’m so sorry for you”, because if you suffer along with someone, it will leak into your decisions later.

Stay on the problem, not only on the emotion it has caused. Do not apologise for things you did not do. And be genuine: your face has to match your words. If you are having a bad day, deal with your own feelings before you take on anyone else’s.

Stephen Covey put it well in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, nearly four decades ago: “When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.”

Three questions worth asking

Which of the four managers are you on your best day, and which on your worst?

The last time someone brought you a problem, did the conversation end with how they felt or with what happens next?

Have you ever made a promise out of sympathy that you had no power to keep?

That employee did not get a raise that afternoon. They got air, and then a plan.

Dr Philios Andreou Sphika is the Deputy CEO and President of the Other Markets Unit, including Thailand and Asia, at BTS Group, a leading global strategy execution consulting firm specialising in the people side of strategy. For executives who are interested in connecting, Dr Philios can be reached at philios.andreou@bts.com or visit his LinkedIn profile.