Whenever I train managers and supervisors on the importance of developing and expressing empathy toward those they manage, I get outward assurances that they understand and agree (through nods and uh-huh’s), but I can see behind their eyes that this idea is filled with concern. If they were honest about this practice, most of them would admit that showing empathy can result in a bit of trap.
To be empathetic I need to view the world from the perspective and experience of another person. That perspective should affect the way I relate and respond to them. In the case of business relationships, being empathetic may mean creating some kind of reduction of expectations based on their situation, difficulties or life-challenges.
Sympathy or Empathy?
I find it’s helpful to define empathy as opposed to sympathy because they get regularly confused. Sympathy evokes an identification with a person’s problems and is usually accompanied with a strong desire to bring immediate comfort. A sympathetic response will have you trying to recover the individual to a state of happiness as quickly as possible.
Empathy is the ability to see glimpses of how the world looks through the eyes of another person. It provides context, helping you understand more of what they are facing and what’s involved in their actions or inactions. Healthy empathy does not feel compelled to rush in and make things better. It uses what it sees to create understanding.
Being Human
If someone is going through a highly emotional, bitter divorce we should be willing to understand their experience with that pain and make allowances for them not functioning “at their best.” That is the human-honoring, kind thing to do. The difficulty that surfaces is connected to the way that people interpret their own pain. In the same way that different people have varied physical constitutions which makes one individual more vulnerable to sickness and having generally weaker health than another, everyone has a different emotional constitution.
I’ve seen some people lose a parent to cancer, not miss a day of work, and the only way I found out about it was after they made a random comment about traveling to Jersey for a memorial service over the weekend. I’ve also seen other people fall completely apart and miss a week of work over the illness of a pet. You have to beg one person to take a personal day off for self-care and the other you have to prod and plead to get them moving forward and returning to their responsibilities.
Giving empathy to a person who is likely to protract the need for reprieve and perhaps even abuse the allowances of managerial kindness can become a sympathy trap. Some of you have found yourself stuck in that trap and now want to avoid at all costs. It’s difficult to accurately anticipate how one employee will respond to the expression of empathy as opposed to another, so many of you have decided to steer clear of those emotional hazards altogether. I get that, but I also know that building employee engagement requires trust and rapport that cannot be gained without the meaningful, individual expression of empathy.
Here are a couple of suggestions to help you manage with empathy while avoiding the sympathy trap:
1. Demonstrate empathy and have honest conversations
You will need to communicate empathy; “I’m really sorry for what you are experiencing and know that this is a difficult and painful time for you…”, but too many managers leave the harder points of timelines and expectations unspoken because it seems inappropriate and perhaps counterproductive to conveying empathy. My advice is to convey empathy and specifically define what you are going to do to help them. “We care about you and want to see you get through this in a healthy way, so we are going to reduce your caseload and allow you more flexibility on your work schedule for the next two weeks.”
By immediately defining what allowances are being made in demonstration of your empathy, it sets the expectation that they take advantage of the allowance and do what they need to do to get back on their feet. Neglecting straight and open communication about the timeline and details of these adjusted expectations results in ambiguity. Ambiguity is the quickest way to end up in the sympathy trap, where the employee is defining what empathy looks like and the accommodations you should be making for their personal difficulties. Communicate empathy and then carefully clarify the way you plan to support them in terms of timelines and resumption of responsibilities.
2. Use what you perceive: Practice functional empathy
Empathetic insight has two purposes, One is gaining a perception of another person’s pain and an understanding of how their focus, energy or even patience in their professional life might suffer in direct proportion to their personal suffering. Acknowledging what you perceive helps individuals feel seen and cared for.
The other purpose for empathetic insight is that this understanding can allow you to influence them in a practical, positive direction. After expressing my sorrow over a staff person who had experienced the death of a family member, I said, “Grief is a complex and unpredictable process. It seems that no two people process loss like this in the same way, but I’ve also seen people languish in their grief because they try to go through it alone. There are really helpful resources available to you. The first place I’d check is with local hospice providers. They may be able to connect you to a grief group or some other resource. Just promise me that you won’t try to get through this alone. Okay?”
They may not admit it, but hurting people need hopeful guidance. You don’t want to position yourself as a pseudo-counselor and build an unhealthy dependency, so be sure to point people to resources in the larger community.
When you offer encouraging guidance based on what you’ve personally experienced or how you’ve seen others go poorly or powerfully through similar struggles it adds a functional element to empathy that people genuinely need. It will also help you steer clear of the sympathy trap.