This is Day #22 of a collaborative project with my strategic partner, Margi Bush of Wisdom Tree Coaching.
If you haven’t read Day One through Day Twenty-One in this series, you may want to read those first. Today we will continue to explore our fifth theme, Empathy.
Today, we want to offer up more suggestions for being a Boss demonstrates empathy with direct reports:
Let us introduce you to three friends of Empathy:
- Connection:Feel with the direct report do not feel for them. For example, do not feel sorry for them as they share their struggle with a particular skill. Connection requires us to feel with them and respond with, “I hear you and I am here for you.”
- Communication:Respond in ways that the direct reports feels acknowledged, heard and valued. For example, communicate this, “I am familiar with your experience, tell me more…”
- Silence:We must be comfortable with silence. This is the hardest skill to learn when demonstrating empathy. When a direct report shares a challenge or struggle, we feel uncomfortable, we want to diagnose and fix them. That is not helpful. We commit one of the dialogue disasters, (read Day 12) and connection is lost. Empathy is giving them space to share without interrupting with a diagnosis or fixing things for them.
You have 10 days left in 2018, take time and practice being the Boss who demonstrates empathy with direct reports. Learn to use empathy’s: friends: Connection, communication and silence.