Happy August! During
the summer months I try to take off a few weeks to get out of the office and
reflect on successes and failures. I
have had my fair share of both. My
personality is one that tends to think more about the failures than the
successes but it is not because I belabor my imperfections but rather that I
want to always be improving. I had an
“Ah ha” moment about being a leader that sympathizes versus empathizes and how
one over the other can destroy a culture.
A longtime family
friend of mine who has known me my entire life shared the simplest but the most impactful video on the difference between sympathy and empathy. By definition, sympathy is a social affinity
in which one person stands with another person and closely understands his or
her feelings. Empathy is the capacity to
recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by
another person. When you read the definitions
they are quite similar and tend to overlap so you can see why it is common for
us to waiver between the two or confuse them.
The difference between the two is very powerful. Showing sympathy and being truly real about
it can imply that we are involving ourselves and feel responsible in some
way. Sympathy is appropriate when you
are dealing with children, family members or close friends that need our help
in the solution. However, with work
colleagues it can really destroy a relationship. It can cause hurt feelings between other co-workers
if they feel like they are not treated the same way. It can also strip the person of solving their
own problems.
Here is what sympathy sounds like in the workplace: Brenda has several children and they are all
in different schools. When she took the
job she knew her work hours were 8-3 and that business hours were 8-5 and she
needed to be available from home during times she was not in the office. However, the change in school schedules
created stress for her trying to figure out what to do in this new chapter she
was in. When she approached her boss
about this her boss reacted with sympathy.
Being a mother herself she knew what a challenge it was. The boss offered to let her work from home in
the morning and transfer kids to schools during their scheduled drop offs and
then come into the office. However, the
boss involved herself and came up with the solution not the other way around. The colleague began to come in well after 9:45
and depart around 2:00, sometime sooner.
If a child was sick she left without announcing it and she quickly
deviated from a schedule which wreaked havoc on the culture. Since her boss came up with the solution she
began to assume that it didn’t matter.
However, what the colleague failed to realize is that everyone began to
expect the same flexibility which did not work for the business. Clients began complaining, co-workers began
to be resentful, and the boss was left to pick up the pieces. The more appropriate
emotion would have been empathy.
When we empathize, we choose not to own the outcome or solve
problems for the other person. In the
situation above an empathetic leader would have listened and articulated back
the challenges that working parents have and recognizing the challenges the
adjusted school schedules have on parents with multiple children. However, an empathetic leader would have
asked the colleague to come to her with solutions to her problems and then
figure out what worked for the business and what didn’t. Being empathetic is to listen and articulate
back your understanding of the feelings, the situation and the impact it has on
the company. Being empathetic is not to
make the problem your own or to solve it.
I believe that empathy is important in the workplace. It does not show weakness but is does require
a lot of energy and it is hard not to fall over to the sympathy side when we
truly care about our employees. However,
speaking from experience, leading with sympathy can drive employees away
because they can become reliant on you to fix their problems and if you stop
they resent it. Managing people is a tough job.
You can never be everything to everyone. If you want help on management
issues or need help building the right team please call us! We are empathetic to your struggles and will
gratefully partner with you to build the best team possible!
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