The key steps to creating an empathetic leadership culture
Business and HR leaders often strive to create an empathic culture.
Empathy is a leadership trait often sought and championed as it improves connections with employees, enabling a better understanding of their issues and needs. This ultimately leads to greater engagement, reduced burnout and improved productivity.
The challenge is to build empathetic leadership when empathy, by itself, is merely a shared feeling. Is it just a case of providing employees with warm and fuzzy words as required? As Christmas approaches, it’s a good time to reflect on your organisation’s approach to empathy and ask whether tea and sympathy are enough.
Words and action
Words by themselves are never enough. Leaders shouldn’t see empathy as merely expressing their concern for an employee’s situation, as a failure to put measures in place to make things better will quickly turn the manager-employee relationship sour.
As O.C. Tanner’s Global Culture Report has proven, to effectively build an empathetic culture requires ‘practical empathy’, which means supporting compassionate words with action.
Many ‘empathy initiatives’ leave employees frustrated, with nearly half (47%) of employees reporting a lack of follow-through on company promises. This lack of action is hugely damaging, denting trust and leaving employees dissatisfied with how they’re being treated.
And so, beyond the traditional definition of empathy, as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, practical empathy is a practice of care. It includes all the same elements but focuses on understanding another’s needs and moving to act on their behalf.
Six steps to practical empathy
Practical empathy can be learnt and taught by using the following six key steps as a framework:
- 1. Focus on the person and their needs
- 2. Seek understanding to better understand their day-to-day employee experiences
- 3. Listen to learn rather than just demonstrating concern
- 4. Embrace perspectives so you remain open to different viewpoints
- 5. Take supportive action so you’re going beyond simply caring
- 6. Respect boundaries which must include ensuring leaders have support in place so they aren’t acting as comprehensive support systems.
The key is to have a plan of action, after listening and showing concern for the employee’s situation. Action could range from offering greater job flexibility through to connecting the employee with additional resources to support their wellbeing. Even if the solution isn’t immediate, it’s important that the employee feels listened to and they see that steps are being taken to address the problem.
When leaders demonstrate practical empathy, employees feel more engaged and fulfilled, and a strong sense of belonging is 1,149% more likely. It’s therefore crucial that organisations not only champion empathetic leadership, but provide the tools and knowhow to ensure displays of empathy are accompanied by practical support. One without the other will result in the organisation and its leaders being viewed as shallow and ineffectual.
Insights taken from O.C. Tanner’s 2024 Global Culture Report
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