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Empathy is often considered one of the most vital skills for today’s leaders. This makes sense, provided that people need and want a leader who understands them and seems to care directly about their long-term needs.
While empathy is a needed skill, there is also a point where you possibly can go too far. If you don’t have some boundaries and rules, you will likely be trampled on all over the place and your ability to turn into a business leader will likely be overshadowed. The hardest a part of being an effective leader is knowing where the line is, to determine what is helpful and what is not.
Consider the study conducted by Catalyst which found that employees with an empathetic leader were more progressive (61%), more engaged (76%), and less likely to leave the company for one other opportunity (57%). You will be an empathetic leader with boundaries that may provide help to avoid burnout and more effectively guide employees to perform at their best.
Empathy in leaders is a powerful tool, but you lose your power as a leader if you don’t have some reference points or parameters that allow you to make final decisions. When employees don’t meet performance expectations, it’s vital to do greater than just have empathy.
As CEO of Carbliss, leading over 40 team members and scaling to over 8 figures in 3 years, I have seen many situations where empathy made incredible changes to project outcomes. At the same time, you possibly can only lead with empathy if it comes with certain limitations.
You need to have a culture of transparency and a history of trust in your employees. Then, when you make these sorts of tough decisions, the culture of the team doesn’t suffer too much. Instead, your team rallies around you and understands your reasoning.
Creating this kind of culture in an organization takes work, and it’s not all the time a easy, straightforward process. As a leader with years of experience navigating good (and bad) situations with an empathetic leadership style, I can confidently inform you what to do and what not to do. Here’s the three-step protocol we follow to get results.
1. Try to understand
It’s a common misconception that individuals want to make the most of empathetic leaders. In reality, it’s more common for a leader to not understand the underlying concerns or needs of an worker in these situations.
Instead, seek to understand. Have an initial conversation and create a framework inside that conversation that may help structure your decision-making. Here is an example:
“Thank you for talking with me. Before we begin, I want to be absolutely clear on one thing. This “DESCRIPTION OF AN EVENT” is not an automatic ban on employment with our company. Do you recall the previous conversation we had on “DATE” about this incident?…”
“The purpose of our discussion today is to discuss additional information that we have learned since this conversation. We expect you to answer our questions honestly because you are an employee here. If you are dishonest or refuse to answer, we may terminate your employment based on that dishonesty. Do you understand that?”
2. Trust, but confirm
As Ronald Reagan said, one other key element of the process is not to simply rely on what you are told, but to follow through. You would not buy a competitor just because they claim to be profitable. You would not select a product based on a marketing promise. Apply the same strategy to these conversations.
Do your due diligence. Sometimes you might need to go to the legal defense team, HR managers, or even a coworker to discuss what happened. Seek further corroboration of what was discussed, what happened, and the facts of the incident. Make sure you are relying on the facts.
3. The exceptions you permit create the culture you create
Set expectations and stick to them. If you are not clear and transparent or set rules that you simply do not require of your team, it can reduce your effectiveness as a leader. Here is an example.
You have nine individuals who work hard for you, often staying longer than required to get the job done. They are on time every day. You trust them to be there, giving it their all. One other person shows up five minutes late every day and is ready to leave five minutes early.
What does this create in your culture? That one person shows others that you simply are willing to let things occur. As a result, the other nine high-performing employees show up later, stay less often, and move on because “Johnny does it.” Allowing that one person to cross your boundaries—whatever they might be—encourages others to consider that you simply are okay with it and that such behavior is acceptable because it is an exception that you simply allow.
In these situations, you would like to step up to the plate immediately. That means intervening early on with a team member who is evading the rules. Get to the heart of the matter immediately. Give the person the opportunity to do what is right. Team members who don’t make changes is probably not the right people to do them.