All the available research supports the notion that understanding leaders engage their staff more. A leader’s ability to listen, understand and respond empathetically to their teams is a “critical driver of overall performance” for management. But only 40% of frontline leaders have the skill to be considered proficient in this.
40% may not sound too bad at first but to put it into context: if I told you every day you have a 6 out of 10 chance of making a loss in your business every day, you’d take the situation more severely. In actuality, the teams managed under the 40%ers do perform better on individual and team levels. They understand and align their goals with leadership goals which inspire them to be loyal, hardworking, productive, better with customers and better at their jobs.
So what do the teams of these 40%ers all have in common?
1. They are helpful
When leaders manage their teams with empathy, the teams are suited to offer solutions and be considerate of the needs of others. For instance: walking into a restaurant and asking for vegan options, empathetic staff will be helpful in pointing out what changes can be made to recipes rather than simply saying “We don’t offer vegans options”. The former is a good indicator of empowered and empathetic staff.
2. They are honest
Sticking with the example above, staff will provide honest feedback to clients can and can’t be done rather than serving a non-vegan option under false pretences. Honesty with management and team members can include not stealing, giving honest feedback and transparency.
3. They are humble
In how they work, in receiving feedback on their performance, in their interactions with people who rank them differently in the workplace, etc. they are still very smart but they remain teachable and approachable in their work and service to others.
A lack of cognitive understanding bleeds profits in many ways. Consider that most companies have only 30% fully engaged staff, which means 70% of your HR investment potential is wasted. To engage the staff, there must be mutual respect for the unique contributions of all members. Having 70% of your staff disengaged (zombies) doesn’t scream managerial success, does it? So why aren’t more companies giving more to cultivating and practicing empathy? I have 3 suggestions:
1. The lack of direct impact to ROI. Because there are shareholders and investors to answer to, businesses have to be strict about the numbers. There is no space in the reports for effective management and relationships, just profits and losses. However when you consider that 30% of employees are fully engaged, that means you’re losing money in the 70%. How can we ignore the problem and its contribution to success?
2. Empathy is regarded a soft skill (i.e. attributed to the self). In this view, companies expect individuals to be at the forefront of developing it and ignore the overall big picture of everyone’s role in it. Consider the fact that empathy is key task accomplishment that require in person to person relations. Companies play a big role in enabling empathetic conversations when managers can learn to practise this skill with their teams.
3. No one has time. The 21 st century work environment promotes a “work till you drop” mentality that breeds a ‘busy’ culture where no one cares to have time to be empathetic because we’re all trying to keep our heads above the waters. Ironically a little empathy would largely remedy this situation easily on all sides.