How leadership works
Leadership as an organizational management nuance has been debated among leadership experts as an art or a science. Leadership as an art is built on relationships and excellent communication skills that are inherent in a leader. It is the ability to apply leadership principles in a flexible, intuitive, and creative manner that reflects your make-up as an individual. Leadership as a science is based on the fact that there are methodologies, systemic approaches, processes, and models to follow for leadership performance. Regardless of which side of the divide that you belong to, it is important to know that leadership is a combination of both science and art. You cannot have the science of it without the artistic approach. This is why leading with empathy demonstrates the overlap that exists between the science of leadership and its art.
As a matter of preference, you can approach leadership from different dimensions. You can choose to lead with an iron fist through dictatorship, or democratically through majority vote. Some people choose to lead through nepotism, favoritism, charisma, or with empathy. The most exciting model of leadership for me is to lead with empathy. Leading with empathy does not mean lowering the performance or productivity standards of your organization. It doesn’t mean a harmful compromise that takes the life out of the organization; rather, it means leading with pragmatic sensibility, with humanity at its core and candor.
The man who taught me how to lead with empathy was none other than Jack Welch of General Electric. However, many perceived him as being very controversial in his approach during his lifetime. However, Jack Welch took General Electric from $14 billion in 1981 to a $490 billion business in 2001 through his unique management and leadership style. He is known for his employee management differentiation system of the 20:70:10 principle. For him, the 20% category of workers are the organization’s high performers. They are the goal getters for the organization and are expected to be treated specially. The people in the 70% performance category are the medium-level performers. These are people who are performing moderately, but still have a lot of room to improve on their jobs.
Finally, the 10% performance category is the non-performers in the organization. Jack Welch argued that the bottom 10% must be loved on their way out of the organization as much as they were loved when they were first offered a job at the organization.
Now, when l became a manager in my place of work, l adopted the same principle, where I gave non-performing employees enough time to grow and develop. I offered my time to train and get them equipped for their job. I also sign them up for training programs within the organization to get up to date in their skill acquisition before letting them go, after we both understand they lack the requisite skills needed to perform on the job. With that understanding, they know the reason why they are being let go from the organization. They are loved in the same way they were first loved to work for our organization. This model of leading with empathy has worked amazingly for me and has become my adopted approach to leadership. Furthermore, you must understand that to lead with empathy, certain parameters are supposed to be put into consideration for the best possible result to occur.
Parameters to consider when leading with empathy
Active Listening
This means to truly hear someone without interruption, judgment. It is measured by how much you align people’s words, tone, and body language. It is a way of building trust with people and showing that you value their perspective. At the beginning, I was very immature when it came to listening actively to people. I always thought I had to find something to say as a way of response to what was being said. I don’t listen most of the time. I was always too preoccupied with my response rather than listening to people’s plight. Another thing that was awkward for me was that I always felt pressured to answer, even when I did not have a valid response to what was said. I did this for many years without knowing. It wasn’t until around 2022 when I undertook a Clinical Pastoral Education Program unit 1-4 that I began to understand how I had been doing my listening to people the wrong way. It was from that program that I learned what it means to actively listen to people. Ever since then, I have made a deliberate attempt at listening to people more actively and engagingly.
Seeing through their perspective
To lead effectively, you need to understand what it means to see through others’ perspectives. You need to step into someone else’s shoes, imagine their experiences, emotions, and foster a deeper understanding. It’s not about agreeing with them but about seeing their world. I knew next to nothing about perspective until I traveled to a friend’s house in Sagamu in 2001 to spend a night with him and his family. It was a memorable experience because of how much I valued our friendship and the honor accorded me to spend precious time with his family. While I was with my friend, he gave me a book to read, written by Stephen Covey – The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He had just bought the book and wanted me to read the book because of the wisdom nuggets that were in it. I took the book and I read it through the night. It was from that book that I understood what perspective is and how it works on the ability to make choices and decide on issues that confront us. In the book, Stephen Covey had a drawing in that book that depicts an ugly old woman and a pretty young woman. Now, depending on how you are built in life to see things, you will either see only an old, ugly woman or a pretty young woman. It will take a genius from your side to be able to see both in the picture. When I was able to see both the old, ugly, and young, pretty woman in the same image, then it dawned on me realistically that two people can be looking at the same thing in real life and have different outcomes of what they are truly seeing. The lesson taught me how to be understanding when people disagree with my view on an issue. It was Stephen Covey who taught me that lesson, and I am grateful to him for that deep insight.
Recognizing people’s context
In life, context is always important to the outcomes we often experience. Everyone feels joy, pain, sorrow, or fear – that is our shared humanity. What is different is how and why people feel these emotions. This is context! It helps you know what to include and what to eliminate in the emerging story. To excel as a leader, you have to lead by respecting individuals’ differences and not treat all people as if they are one homogeneous species. It adds context to issues that helps you spot those differences. Context helps leaders to foster genuine empathy when leading their team because with context, insights are generated, and with insights, empathy emerges.
Self-awareness
The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lack self-awareness. Self-awareness is the ability to have a conscious understanding of your thoughts, feelings, motivations, values, strengths, weaknesses, and emotions. It involves being aware of your mental states, including your perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Self-awareness is often considered the foundation of personal growth, emotional intelligence, and effective relationships. Self-awareness helps a leader to lead with clarity and precision. Understanding your own emotions helps you relate to others without projecting your biases or assumptions onto them. Often times certain leaders love to lead with certain stereotypes. They lead with a heavy baggage of their own biases and assumptions, which leads them to pass unfair judgments on the people that they lead. But the moment you become self-aware as a leader is the same day you become a compassionate leader of some sort.
Presence
Sometimes, people just need to be heard, not requiring their problem to be fixed. Accommodating their feelings and being present with them is often more powerful than giving them advice on how to fix their problems. Being with people is more important than working for people. Working for people is often too transactional, creating a parallel of a superhero and a victim, while being with them is the offering of our presence to them in their most difficult time.
Self-care
While empathy is vital, over-identifying with people’s pain can drain you. You have to establish certain boundaries with people to prevent burnout while taking care of them. You have to balance compassion with self-care to sustain it long-term.
In all, it is the combination of these parameters that lays the groundwork for leading with empathy. Without these parameters at the core of your leadership, you will not be able to effectively lead with empathy.
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