Written by: Neela Pirwitz, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Empathy plays an important role in burnout prevention. Both empathetic leadership and a display of empathy towards ourselves and our colleagues can be important factors in creating psychological safety in employees, reducing stress, and therefore reducing burnout. Additionally, empathy can have positive effects on work-life balance.
Empathy is the ability to feel for another person and to imagine the circumstance that they are in. Unlike sympathy, empathy is not a feeling of pity for another person. Empathy is more active, as it requires us to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and see the situation from their point of view, rather than our own. Often, we use empathy to comfort people in our circle when they are having a tough time in an attempt to make them feel less alone and provide them with a feeling of safety. In the workplace specifically, empathy can lead to increased psychological safety. This means employees can feel safe to learn, contribute and challenge ideas without having to fear punishment. But the effects of empathy can go beyond that and can serve an even more active, even preventative role. For instance, empathy can play an important role in burnout prevention and can lead to positive changes in the work-life balance of individuals.
The importance of empathetic leadership for burnout prevention
At its core, empathetic leadership allows the leader to pivot in their leadership style depending on the needs of the employees. In this approach, employee feedback can be considered and responded to effectively. For instance, flexible working hours, the possibility to work from home, or redistribution of workload are all measures that might be taken as a result of employee feedback. Employees can feel psychologically safer by actively asking for feedback from employees, assessing their needs, and adjusting the parameters of the working relationship. As a result, the risk of burnout can decrease.
Leaders can also take more active steps than asking for feedback alone to increase their empathy levels at work. One way of doing this would be to try and actively watch out for burnout and overwork in subordinates. This can be done by introducing check-in meetings, allowing for a reassessment of the workload, and potentially providing strategies to tackle overwork or even finding a way to reduce the workload.
Another active step leaders can take in showing empathy is showing sincere interest in their subordinate's needs. Creating a culture of trust and transparency can foster employee satisfaction and engagement, which might, in turn, contribute to a reduced risk of burnout.
Hence, empathetic leadership is an essential factor in burnout prevention.
Preventing burnout through showing empathy towards ourselves and colleagues
Beyond leaning on empathetic leadership to prevent burnout, empathy plays a powerful role on an individual level too. Both showing empathy towards ourselves and showing empathy to others can help us prevent burnout. Practicing empathy towards ourselves can look like setting boundaries, resisting the urge to overwork or simply stopping to be hard on ourselves when we are not able to complete our tasks in the exact way we anticipated. By reducing the pressure we put on ourselves, we reduce stress and therefore reduce the risk of burning out. This is not to say, that it is in our hands alone to reduce pressure on ourselves. Especially in the workplace, pressure is often imposed on us through higher-ups. More often than not we do not choose the expectations leadership has toward us. We are simply subjected to them, amplifying the need for empathetic leadership. Yet, we have some degree of power in how we let these expectations affect us. Cutting ourselves some slack and allowing ourselves to pivot in our strategy to complete our tasks can be a powerful way of regaining control, showing ourselves empathy, and therefore reducing the risk of burnout.
Additionally, research shows that medical staff who display higher levels of empathy towards patients will have a lower risk of burnout. Hence, showing empathy towards others is not only helpful to them, as it makes them feel seen and safe, but also helpful to ourselves. We can likely transfer this thought to relationships between colleagues – showing empathy to a colleague might lead to a reduction in stress in them, and could at the same time reduce stress in ourselves, helping us to prevent burnout. A win-win situation!
The influence of empathy on a healthy work-life balance
There is a positive relationship between empathy and work-life balance. This means, that work-life balance increases with increasing empathy. Additionally, empathetic leaders have an easier time doing well at their job. Their effectiveness in their role is increased, leading to a more rewarding experience. A reduction of stress and an increase in the feeling of doing our job well allows us to have more energy outside of the office too. Therefore, we can invest more time and energy into activities we enjoy or spend this time with our friends and family. Our work-life balance will be enhanced. Although this specific example is related to leadership positions, employees on any corporate level can likely improve their work-life balance by showing more empathy towards their colleagues too.
Additionally, empathy improves communication and positive outcomes of conversations at work and home. As good communication furthers understanding between people, efficiency, especially at work, can increase. This would allow employees to complete their work faster, making it possible for them to reduce overworking and hence spend more time in their private lives. As a result, work-life balance will be improved.
It is clear, that there is an important relationship between empathy and burnout prevention. Both, empathetic leadership and showing empathy towards ourselves and our colleagues can increase feelings of psychological safety and therefore reduce the risk of burnout. At the same time, increased empathy can have a positive effect on work-life balance.
As empathy can be practiced quite easily, it provides a powerful, low-effort, high-reward way of taking an active stance in burnout prevention for both ourselves and those around us.
Neela Pirwitz, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Neela Pirwitz, is a Jay Shetty certified burnout-prevention and well-being coach. She studied psychology and is now working for an international organization. Based in the Netherlands and coaching globally, she is working with professionals who want to become more efficient in how they work, create a better work-life balance, or restructure their routines and habits to prevent burnout. Neela’s mission is to help her clients to fit their work into their life, rather than life into their work.
