This is Day #21 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 suggestions for being a Boss demonstrates empathy with direct reports:
What is Empathy?
- Empathy is the ability to support your direct reports without offering a solution.
- Empathy is your choice to have a learning mindset and respect the perspective of your direct reports.
- Empathy is at the heart of Knowledge of Self, Self-Management, Knowledge of Others, and Relationship Management.
Empathy requires these things:
- Ability to understand the content of what has been stated by your direct report
- Ability to dig deep and understand what is behind the content and understand its meaning
- Ability to reflect back what has been said, “What I heard you say is…” without evaluation or judgment
Empathy has a friend, communication. We will discuss this tomorrow.