Empathetic Leadership: Why it matters now more than ever
For everyone who has ever fantasised about how much work they could get done if they didn’t have colleagues interrupting them every other minute… now you know!
Is remote working working out for you? A few months into the lockdown measures, we can take a moment to reflect on whether remote working has lived up to our expectations. How are the people we work with responding to our direction? And how are we coping with this new way of providing leadership?
A Gallup study of over 10,000 employees found that followers have four primary needs of their leaders: trust, compassion, stability, and hope.
Changing circumstances
Paradoxically, now that we’re physically apart, it’s more important than ever to be mindful of your team members’ circumstances. We can’t step in to adapt their working environment to accommodate them - we don’t even know what it’s like on a day-to-day basis. If they have a young child constantly asking for help with their drawings, that’s just the way things are. It doesn’t require our input. But, it’s still good to know about it, to be empathetic, and to factor it into our expectations. This requires trust on both sides.
Gallup research shows that just one in three employees worldwide strongly agree that they trust the leadership of their organisation.
Of course, your team is under no obligation to share what’s going on in their lives. For many of us, the normal barriers separating the personal and the professional are breaking down. External factors are interrupting our work flow. That could be down to lacking basic facilities, such as a desk, an up-to-date computer, stable internet, a passable amount of quiet, or just the physical space to work. But it can also be down to care duties for children, relatives, or even an elderly neighbour who now needs help with groceries. How valuable is it now to have leaders in place that employees can trust - who don’t pry, but calmly and compassionately create an environment that allows their team members to share what’s important to them?
It’s more crucial than ever to resist the urge to meddle, judge or fix problems that are outside of your remit. If you’re unsure about what you can do, simply ask - don’t feel like you have to have all the answers. Maybe there are accommodations you can make, like adapting working hours, shifting tasks around among your team, or using different platforms to better aid communication. Often, it’s enough to just show that you are thinking about their wellbeing and that you are open to where a conversation may lead.
Creating space for accountability
Big technology giants like Facebook, Google and Microsoft are leading the way in accepting the new realities of flexible working. They have realised that a bums-in-seats transactional mentality won’t bring success. Managers are often experiencing the opposite problem to the one you would traditionally expect: instead of slacking off, employees are working harder than ever, eager to prove themselves whilst the line between work-time and personal-time becomes a dot on the distant horizon. This comes with its own set of risks and challenges.
“Managers end up micromanaging, and employees end up overworking to prove themselves” - Wade Forster, CEO of Zapier
So how do leaders strike a productive balance? We have to create space for accountability.
Through clear communication and expectation setting, we can encourage our team to take ownership of how they allocate their time. If certain tasks are easier for them to carry out in the morning, or if Zoom meetings are impossible in the afternoon when the kids are playing, give them the freedom to rejig their schedules and create solutions.
By opening the lines of communication, you can encourage your team to share their challenges and achievements. That is how you create a working relationship that supports your organisational culture, whether you go back to the office or not.
