Alex, a regional bank senior leader, loves interacting with people and realizes that team members’ engagement is integral to business success. This awareness shows in how he intentionally connects with team members across the bank, inquiring about their families and career aspirations and listening as they reveal life challenges and workplace concerns.
He brings open communications to life—team members count on him to listen and work with them to explore options, apply his insights, and offer suggestions about their situations.
While Alex initially found this a beneficial way to build rapport and trust with team members, he realizes its impact on him from a self-care perspective. Moreover, he knows that as the bank undergoes significant transformational change and grows, he cannot sustain this level of support over time and remain effective as a leader.
Demonstrating empathy as a leader is crucial. How to manage it is the question.
Empathy. The ability to understand and share another person’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences—putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and responding with care and compassion.
When left unmanaged, a leader’s use of empathy can generate an empathy tax originating from the emotional effort required to support others while working to remain effective in a dynamically changing environment.
Leaders have numerous touch points that invite empathy, often multiplied as organizations experience unprecedented rates and magnitudes of change, flattened organizational design structures, and expanded spans of control.
While empathy is a superpower during change, it can also become an albatross or burden.
Why It Matters
Harold Hook’s concept of Slot Machine Management, an element of the Model-Netics® system, describes a leadership style marked by frequent and massive change. Like a gaming slot machine, constant change occurs in hopes of creating a winning combination. When the result is not as desired, more change occurs, aiming for the desired outcomes.
Slot Machine Management, coupled with the dynamic and unpredictable challenges of the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) environment that organizations and individuals operate in, present numerous opportunities for leaders to exercise empathy as they work to create a greater good environment amid change.
Today's dynamic, changing environment could yield an over-exertion of empathy, creating a tax the leader pays in diminished energy, effort, and engagement.
The Human Factor
Empathy is non-negotiable for leaders. In Daniel Goleman’s Harvard Business Review article What Makes a Leader?, he highlights empathy as one of the five pillars of emotional intelligence critical for effective leadership. Goleman describes empathy as the “ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people” and the “skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions.”
Bringing one’s whole, authentic self to work nullifies the concept of not getting to know people. Expecting team members to set aside personal life concerns and put on a full-focused professional lens upon entering the workplace is not feasible. However, there are boundaries to personal sharing.
It also negates the concept of team members robotically focusing on business matters from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. without leaders demonstrating concern and care for what is happening in the team members’ lives since that significantly influences their “I Can, I Will” attitude.
Even with the expectations of empathy, leaders must establish boundaries to manage the empathy tax proactively.
Empathy with Boundaries
Below are tips to manage the empathy tax while remaining supportive of your teams:
Set Margins.
While empathy is crucial, it’s essential to maintain professional margins to avoid emotional overextension.
- Communicate limits, such as time availability, to manage expectations, protect your calendar and commitments, and reduce the potential for emotional burnout.
- Aim to listen, be present, and discern while balancing compassion with objectivity.
- Become familiar with the organization’s available tools, programs, and support systems to engage as expert resources.
Encourage Team Member Self-Reliance.
Provide resources for your team members to develop problem-solving skills and resilience to reduce dependency on you (the leader) or others for emotional support.
- Instead of offering advice, use questions to coach and lead your team members through self-discovery, empowering them to create their own outcomes. For example, ask, “What one step can you take to move forward?”
- Model the leadership behavior for team members to replicate when interacting with colleagues in building a supportive culture.
Foster a Supportive Culture.
Empower team members to support each other.
- Facilitate peer collaboration, such as creating buddy pairs and check-ins, encouraging team members to facilitate the process of self-discovery and problem-solving in conversations.
A supportive culture empowers mutual respect and creates a more resilient workplace during organizational change.
A Call to Action
You don’t have to go it alone. To balance your approach, seek mentorship, peer support, or professional coaching. Schedule a complimentary consultation today.
References:
Goleman, D. (1998). What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review, 76(6), 93–102.
Hook, H. (n.d.). Model-Netics® Memory Jogger. Leadership Management Institute.
Lillian Davenport, SPHR, SHRM – SCP, MGSCC, Principal, End View LeadershipSM
