Empathize, but don't be stupid

Empathize is an oft repeated word when it comes to conversation, especially on leadership traits. It is also misused / abused a lot.

I used to hear this word thrown a lot, during several conversations. After a time I got so irritated, that I went to dictionary to find out what it meant. A simple meaning I found was - "to understand and share the feelings of another."

My first doubt was why was this used as a leadership quality, isn't it necessary for being human, leave alone a leader?? ( I will leave the larger question for a later day discussion).

So, to become a good leader, I understood that I needed to understand the feelings / emotions of my people. This lesson that I learnt, made me a better person more than a better leader.

I used to be hard taskmaster when it comes to delivery, miserly on praising people for good work. It was always in the back of my mind, that whatever the team delivered, was something that I had done when I was at that level. Been there, Done that, so No Big Deal. But I failed to understand that for them it was their first time. When I started to see things from their side, I realized it was something big for them. For someone who was coding for the first time, compiling a piece of code and executing it with success was a big thing. For a person doing a status report for the first time, was in itself a big thing. It took me time to get into the mode of giving credit for things which though were small to me, was big for the person who accomplished. But once I started doing it, I could see people were happier and the team was motivated to do better because of this recognition. 

On the other hand, there were times when I tried to put myself in the other person's shoes and failed miserably.

You cannot understand all the emotions that a person goes through at a point in time. The biggest disservice to the person is to try to put yourself in his/her  shoes, fail to understand but trying to come out of the situation by saying something or doing a lip-service. It is better be quiet and listen, than saying something stupid in the name of being empathic. This was a hard lesson for me. 

Until next week...

ps: In one of the conversations when discussing a bad rating, I told the person that I understand it is a tough rating, but it is the process. I know how difficult it is to get such a rating at the end of a year long struggle. Pat came the reply, " raghu, you do not know what it means to get a bad rating ".. and the conversation ended.

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