Empathy and listening: The two strongest superpowers of leadership in times of change

Empathetic leadership plays a critical role in affecting positive change within organizations.

By Nate Nelson, Managing Director & Partner, ADAPTOVATE USA

In the dynamic landscape of business, the role of a leader is multifaceted. At the core, the purpose of a leader is to provide clear direction, inspire their team towards a common vision, and facilitate an environment that encourages high performance and growth. However, during periods of change, this role becomes even more critical, as leaders must navigate their teams through uncertainty while maintaining productivity and morale.

Principally, a leader’s role adjusts to focus on managing the transition, communicating the reasons for the change, and providing support for the team. This often necessitates a heightened level of empathy and active listening. Employees who report having empathetic leaders say they are nearly five times more likely to be innovative and two times more likely to be engaged with their work. These traits have real productivity and business potential.

Earlier in my career, I was fortunate to report to a leader with strong empathy and listening skills. She would often start our discussions really understanding how I was feeling from a personal standpoint. Fast forward, and I’ve come to realize she was doing that to not only check in on me, but also to share a message that was tailored to what I needed to hear with the right amount of empathy. That has stuck with me and it’s something that I try to do for my team on an individual basis.

EMPATHY AND LISTENING

Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, and active listening, the process of attentively hearing and interpreting communication from others, become particularly valuable during change. So much so, in fact, that they have the ability to drive critical benefits for an organization in times of uncertainty. These include:

• Organizational inclusivity: Creating an environment where employees are “seen and heard” is the foundation for universal contribution.

• Alignment to purpose: Seeking a better understanding of the team allows leaders to tune the overall messaging on vision and purpose that connects with their employees.

• Effective decision-making: Ultimately, inclusivity and alignment to purpose can improve decision-making not only at the executive level but throughout the organization as a whole.

Leaders should proactively seek opportunities to put this into practice. These opportunities can show up as relatively minor “moments” that can have an outsized impact on employees.

FIVE WAYS TO PUT THIS INTO PRACTICE

Here are five empathy and listening “moments” that leaders should consider:

Open communication methods can range from enabling informal interactions to actively soliciting feedback. It’s important to develop a suite of practices that enable all team members to safely express themselves concerning critical organizational topics.

My philosophy is that the “door is always open.” I try hard to be approachable to create the type of psychological safety we strive for in our business.

Active listening is a skill that involves thoughtful observation and mirroring of our teammates. This can take several forms, from interpersonal body language to memos and survey reviews, so long as the listener shows the input was comprehensively received.

Personally, this is very important to me. I always try to acknowledge what I’m hearing by listening and then repeating a summary of what the topic or issue might be so we can attempt to get to a common understanding.

Showing understanding through both words and actions is essential to keep communication open. Transparent decision-making and tailored personal interactions highlight how a leader understands their team’s input and puts it into action.

Context is important, and it is “why” we do things and make decisions. This is something that, as a leader, is imperative but often overlooked.

Personalized support helps individuals cope with change and is necessary, as each employee’s experience through transformation is unique.

One thing that I’ve worked on over the past few years is looking for certain cues from my team and reaching out proactively. Many times, if an employee is coming to you to express their issues or challenges, it likely means that it’s been bothering them longer than it should.

Displaying vulnerability can set the tone for communication and openness throughout the organization. A leader can model what and how to be vulnerable.

In our business, one of our core principles is to experiment and “test and learn.” This means we often fail, but it’s something we celebrate as long as we’ve learned from it. This is something we model at the leadership level and throughout the organization.

Developing empathetic leadership skills requires practice and conscious effort. As a leader, you can start by practicing self-awareness and emotional intelligence while developing active listening habits. Self-awareness is critical for reacting openly to the expressions and experiences of others.

After self-awareness, you can work on your emotional intelligence, which is understanding and managing the emotions of others. Undergoing training and learning emotional intelligence strategies is a great start to testing which methods work best with your team. Active listening can be improved with techniques that limit the tendency to form responses while others speak and with open-ended follow-up questions that maintain the focus of the conversation on the team member.

Ultimately, empathetic leadership plays a critical role in affecting positive change within organizations. Employees who report having empathetic leaders are 26% more likely to say they have a good work-life balance, meaning empathy can change the very perception team members have of their work.

The positive outcomes of this empathetic approach are critical during times of change and more generally contribute to a cohesive, resilient, and successful organization. As CEO Satya Nadella, who has led Microsoft through an exceptional period of growth and innovation, believes “the key to everything is empathy, because nothing is more fruitful than walking in the shoes of others.”

This article was first published on Fast Company as part of their Fast Company Executive Board programme. Written by Nate Nelson.