Empathy Without Action: A Culture Killer
Note From Beth: This week’s post is by my colleague Todd Simendinger.
If the pandemic did nothing else it highlighted leadership strengths and weaknesses across all industries. One of the most critical leadership qualities, empathy, was arguably the leadership quality that sunk or elevated those in leadership positions. In normal times, empathetic leadership plays an important role in workplace culture and productivity. In times of crisis like we’ve experienced the last few years, it’s the most critical aspect of workplace culture and greatly impacts employee retention. The evidence is clear that business and school leaders lacking this skill are struggling to retain their best employees. Why? Because the covid experience has dramatically shifted what employees value in the workplace.
Here’s a good example of how this happens in the workplace. A client recently lost four of his best employees over a two month period. Over the course of our coaching sessions the client revealed that his primary focus at the start of the pandemic was creating a sense of normalcy by maintaining the financial and sales goals set by the company prior to the start of the pandemic, along with keeping regular meeting schedules. The reality was that everything had changed for his staff. They were all working remotely, many had young children and were now balancing work from home while supporting remote learning for their children, and several were grieving the loss of family members to Covid. What he was essentially doing, although in fairness with the best of intentions, was rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Where it Went Wrong
Here was a highly successful business leader with an extensive track record of successfully leading teams, was well respected and had the best of intentions for his team, failing to realize two important facts:
Crisis leadership means redefining organizational priorities, even if it hurts the bottomline.
Empathy without action is often worse than no empathy at all.
While he was empathetic to the challenges that his team was facing, and communicated that to them multiple times, he failed to act on the issues that he controlled. For example, one of the primary concerns of the team was the ability to reach target sales numbers working remotely. This was a legitimate concern in a business where physical interactions (meetings, conferences, etc) account for 75% of all new business. While he was genuinely empathetic to their concerns, his unwillingness to reassess the target sales numbers sent a very clear message: the company values profits over people. That certainly didn’t reflect his true feelings on the matter, but perception is reality.
The Takeaway
The expression of empathy in our personal lives often doesn’t require action. In most cases,we don’t control the underlying factors impacting the affected person. As a leader though, we often control the issues that create angst for employees.
Empathetic leaders are self-reflective about how their decisions and actions impact the team, and they adjust accordingly when necessary.
Empathetic leaders invest in and prioritize professional relationships with staff. As such, they recognize that when change isn’t possible, clearly communicating why is critical.
In the case of my client, his flawed first fact was the belief that pushing forward with the same pre-pandemic norms and expectations created the best environment for his team.
While he was empathetic to their situation, not acting on their feedback AND not communicating why a change wasn’t possible sent a message that although he was empathetic to their cause, he didn’t care enough to fix the issue. In an evolving employment market that’s seen a seismic shift in what prospective employees value in the workplace, soft skills like empathy are more important than ever.
Todd Simendinger has twenty years of experience in education. Over the course of his teaching career Todd has taught across the K-12 spectrum in suburban, urban and vocational settings. His ten plus years as a school administrator include leadership roles as a curriculum and assessment coordinator, HS/MS assistant principal, and for the last seven years as an elementary school principal. Todd’s a certified NCD trainer with coaching experience in both education and business settings, and has served as a mentor and coach for numerous aspiring and sitting school administrators.
You can reach Todd directly by emailing todd@bethwonson.com.