{"id":4272,"date":"2020-05-19T18:31:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T16:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/killumets.ee\/?p=4272"},"modified":"2020-05-25T12:29:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T10:29:42","slug":"empathy-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/killumets.ee\/en\/empathy-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What Most Leaders Are Getting Wrong About Empathy, And Why That\u2019s Dangerous In Times Of Change: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

That sub-heading sounds like a \u2018Randian\u2019 or even sociopathic call to not care about others. It really isn\u2019t, and here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most leaders, managers, and coaches think of empathy as a vital and necessary thing in a human being<\/strong>, and essential in performing their role \u2013 which it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that their understanding of empathy is incomplete, and so it leaves them vulnerable to over-identifying with the people they lead<\/strong> \u2013 or else the fear of over-identifying causes them to disconnect emotionally altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither option is good for the wellbeing and development of the people being led, or for the effectiveness of the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that they are showing \u2018too much\u2019 or \u2018too little\u2019 empathy, so much as that their definition of empathy has something lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at what\u2019s missing in how most people think of empathy, some examples of how it plays out, and what we can do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Empathy? And, What Is Empathy Really<\/em>?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The word \u2018empathy\u2019 as used today is relatively new, appearing in English only at the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century \u2013 as a translation of the German \u2018Einf\u00fchlung\u2019<\/em> (ein<\/em> = \u2018in\u2019, f\u00fchlung<\/em> = feeling), a term from aesthetics describing the ability to appreciate a work of art by projecting one\u2019s personality into the viewed object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only towards the middle of the 20th<\/sup> century did it start to expand from art appreciation to psychology, coming to mean \u201cThe ability to understand and appreciate another person\u2019s feelings, experience, etc.,\u201d (OED).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In everyday speech, \u2019empathy\u2019 is often associated or even used synonymously with older words like sympathy, pity, and compassion \u2013 so like most abstractions, it can mean slightly different things to different people. It\u2019s what philosophers call an \u201copen-textured concept\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More technical, psychological definitions of empathy usually include one or both of two components: \u2018cognitive empathy\u2019, which is the ability to recognize and understand another\u2019s emotional state, and \u2018affective\u2019 or \u2018emotional empathy\u2019, which is actually vicariously feeling their emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are two separate processes, to some extent activating different brain areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cognitive empathy is largely a conscious process, involving a deliberate attempt to view things from the other person\u2019s perspective. To be curious about other persons in-the moment experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emotional empathy is more automatic, involving mirror neurons and the limbic system (the \u2018emotion centre\u2019 of the brain) to simulate or vicariously feel what another person is feeling. It\u2019s how \u2018emotional contagion\u2019 \u2013 \u2018catching\u2019 emotions from another person \u2013 works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, for example, if someone smiles at us, the part of our brain that interprets facial expressions lights up. As it\u2019s the same part of the brain that controls our own facial expressions, then (other things being equal) we will probably find ourselves smiling back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But are these components of empathy, either separately or together, enough for empathy to always be a good thing for a leader?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Cognitive Empathy Goes Wrong<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cognitive empathy \u2013 the ability to put yourself in another person\u2019s shoes \u2013 is an essential skill for a leader if they are not to be blindsided by unexpected responses to their proposals, orders, requests, or even behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two ways that cognitive empathy can go wrong: one of course is where the leader has misread the emotional state and intentions behind the other person\u2019s behaviour, most usually because they have just projected what they<\/strong> would do in the other person\u2019s situation (this habit is sometimes known as \u201cpseudo-empathy\u201d), forgetting that people have different beliefs, preferences, values and behavioural repertoires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remembering that confirmation bias is a universal human characteristic, once we start believing we know for sure what someone is feeling and why they are acting the way they are, that belief starts to generate its own \u2018evidence\u2019, and we build up a \u2018story\u2019 to explain the other person\u2019s behaviour that makes sense to us but may be quite inaccurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two ways you can guard against this cognitive distortion (often known as \u201cmind reading\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Remember that it is just a story, an interpretation that we have generated from our observations, and it may not be accurate. Sorting out in our own minds what is an observation (objective fact) and what is our assumptions, thoughts, and made-up stories, can go a long way to stop us jumping to conclusions.<\/li>
  2. Building on this, you can also ask yourself \u201cHow would I know if this story I\u2019m telling myself isn\u2019t true?\u201d Being aware of confirmation bias, you could actively seek any evidence for alternative explanations of the other person\u2019s behaviour \u2013 or even just ask them about it.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Another failure, or rather misuse, of cognitive empathy, is when someone uses their intellectual understanding of what another person is thinking or feeling to fake empathy for them, with the aim of manipulating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There are lots of examples of this manipulative perspective-taking in popular psychology articles about how to handle narcissists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When Emotional Empathy Goes Wrong<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Emotional empathy or \u2018emotional contagion\u2019 is essentially an involuntary process. For most of us, most of the time, it gives us vital information about how someone else is feeling (and hence how they might react), enabling us to achieve rapport with them much more easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The problem comes when we feel too much of the other person\u2019s emotion, and we believe we don\u2019t have control of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In that situation we would feel like other people, intentionally or not, are in control of how we feel, because there are no boundaries between their feelings and ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It could work the other way too \u2013 we feel responsible for how they feel, so any time they feel bad, we blame ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So in order to avoid upsetting ourselves, we might avoid other people, or blame them when we do get upset. And in order to avoid upsetting others, we might find ourselves walking on eggshells around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This lack of boundaries underlies a thousand articles in magazines and on the web about \u2018empaths\u2019 (people whose experience is that they are too sensitive to other people\u2019s emotions), and \u2018energy vampires\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It can also lead to \u2018burnout\u2019, not just in therapists, counsellors, and coaches, but in managers who over-identify with the people reporting to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Most people would think of these problems as resulting from \u2018too much\u2019 empathy. In fact, they happen when the person\u2019s idea of empathy has something missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Missing Component Of Empathy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The philosopher Amy Coplan draws a distinction between \u201cpseudo-empathy\u201d (projecting yourself into another person\u2019s situation), emotional contagion, and what she calls \u201creal empathy\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Real empathy only happens when three factors are present:<\/p>\n\n\n\n