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Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand other people's feelings, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, empathy is caring for others and “feeling their pain.” It is an emotional response to shared humanity.
Empathy helps us maintain relationships and may dictate success both personally and professionally.
Organizational Performance
Three pillars of organizational empathy are listening, openness, and understanding. About 75% of employees, on average, would prefer an organization with an intense atmosphere of empathy over better compensation.
The reasoning? Generally, empathic leaders and managers understand that a company's can only achieve its bottom line through and with people.
Companies aim to hire effective workers, managers, and leaders capable of moving their organization forward during challenging times. But this step requires looking beyond traditional strategies for management development and cultivating the skills most important for success.
One of those skills is empathy — a vital leadership competency. A recent white paper found that empathy in the workplace is positively related to job performance.
The research found that bosses viewed managers who practiced empathetic leadership toward direct reports as better performers. The findings were consistent across the sample: those managers rated as empathetic by subordinates were also rated as high-performing by their boss.
Additionally, managers skilled at empathetic leadership can recognize signs of overwork in others before burnout becomes an issue that results in turnover.
Demonstrating empathy in the workplace can enable us to resolve conflicts, build more productive teams, and improve our relationships with co-workers, clients, and customers. Additionally, this trait helps improve human interactions and can lead to more effective communication and positive outcomes.
How to Become More Empathetic
Not all of us are born natural empaths. Most individuals will learn empathy through observing the interactions of those around them. And no matter how old you are, it's never too late to become more empathetic.
In the workplace, lines between work and personal life are becoming blurred. Empathetic leaders understand that their team members balance personal issues while maintaining professional responsibilities.
Therefore, one of the most important ways to demonstrate empathy is simply talking about it. Understanding, caring for, and developing others is as important, if not more important, as planning and performance.
Additionally, team members can develop the willingness to help employees with personal problems. Keeping open lines of communication and transparency is an ideal way to foster psychological safety among the group and help people feel comfortable.
Managers and leaders can also teach listening skills and encourage genuine perspective-taking. When people are good listeners, others feel respected, and trust can grow. Focusing not just on the words but on the feelings and values being communicated shows the highest level of empathy.
Notably, it’s helpful to understand the role social identity plays for both yourself and others.
How Can Organizations Accurately Measure Empathy?
Often, companies will provide assessments for prospective employees in addition to or in place of an in-person interview.
A few questions companies can ask to measure empathy include:
- Tell me about when you had to deliver negative feedback or criticism to a colleague. How did you approach the situation with empathy?
- Can you share a situation where you had to mediate a conflict between team members? How did you empathize with each party involved while working towards a resolution?
- Tell me about when you noticed a colleague struggling with a personal issue that affected their work performance. How did you demonstrate empathy and support them?
However, personality assessments that require responding to a set of items use a measurement approach known as self-report. Such measures are highly vulnerable to error measurement, where the results produced are notably different from their “true value.”
Talent Select AI makes it easy to conduct a holistic, consistent, and unbiased assessment of each candidate’s personality traits, core skills, and competencies – all from the interview transcript, with no separate evaluation required.
Most importantly, Talent Select AI doesn’t require any testing, gamification, or other additional tasks for the hiring manager to administer or for the applicant to complete. Our comprehensive candidate assessments are generated directly from the job interview, significantly reducing hiring time while improving the overall hiring experience for HR staff and new-hire candidates.
“Talent Select AI accurately measures traits that are important and useful variables for hiring selectors — attributes that research has shown to correlate with workplace performance,” stated Michael Campion, distinguished professor of management at Purdue University and world-renowned I/O psychologist.
