Written by: Nad Philips, 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.
That was the advice given to a young manager by her boss when she was sharing her concern about the work hours of her team.
The young manager’s concern was the workload, whereby she and her team of 4 marketers had to support the launch of 500 titles per year. Her manager thought that her direct report was suffering because she had too much empathy toward her people.
At every attempt to explain that she and her team are heading for burnout, her manager will say to her: maybe she is not a good fit with the company if she is unable to stick her head to the grind and get the work done. The situation was going on for a few years with no hope for change in the short term as the company enacted a hiring freeze.
The young manager handled the situation by sharing the load, leaving her with less time to manage the team. This meant that some issues were not addressed, and the relationships were not regulated properly. The team is highly engaged and loves their job but is wearing out and does not have a life outside of work. The young manager feels she is in a catch-22, either continuing at the expense of her private life or leaving the company.
So, what is empathy all about in a managerial role?
Empathy is the pathway to compassion; meaning once you understand the situation from the other’s perspective; you act upon it. Not to be confused with sympathy which is feeling pity or concern without the ability to put yourself in the other’s shoes and thus you suffer but do not act.
A recent Deloitte survey of 1000 professionals suggests that the prime driver for burnout is the lack of concern and support of the teams by their managers, in other words: empathy.
Employees who have their manager’s support and recognition show less emotional exhaustion and better resilience.
So, it seems that our young manager is a better leader than her boss.
The boss is driving herself very hard and sacrificing everything for her job and is expecting her direct reports to do so. Our young manager is a millennial who wants to balance her private life and her professional life and enable her team to do likewise.
Obviously, the young manager should not curb her empathy but rather help her boss step into her own.
I am an advocate for the reciprocal nature of empathy. Meaning the manager has empathy towards the direct reports and in turn, the team empathizes with the manager. It is not a one-way street.
One solution could be:
Break the current cycle. Put boundaries, it’s not business as usual. Agreeing on a new set of ground rules.
Demonstrate signs of burnout Perspective taking on the consequences of not changing the current way of doing things.
Put empathy on the agenda. Inform the boss about the needs and wants of the team. Maybe organize sensitivity training.
In general, in order to boost empathy, you need to incorporate some healthy managerial practices:
Start your meetings with check-in and end with a check-out. It will improve emotional intelligence and the expression of emotions.
Instore conditional positive strokes routines Every quarter team member and their manager will recognize and value each other by relating specific situations when a team member helped.
When you assign a task ask the team member what kind of support is needed.
Allow for team regulation meetings.
Give people the opportunity to voice concerns, clear misunderstandings, and iron out disagreements.
Put forward the issues and problem-solve together. Asking for help when required.
Without empathy and compassion, managers will not know where to draw the line that separates challenging the team to their full potential and driving them to burnout.
The analogy with sports is very telling. Good coaches know how to train their champions for a whole day without causing any injuries because they master the art of knowing when to rest the muscle when to give time to recuperate when and for how long to solicit each group of muscle, when to alternate etc.
In that way, they develop the athletes to perform in a sustainable way and have long careers.
Poor coaches put a premature end to the athlete’s career sometimes even before obtaining a title. In one instance a pole-vaulting athlete had to give up his sports life because his coach made him repeat endlessly the same gesture till he got unreversable ligament damage in his ankles.
A ski athlete had to drop out after obtaining an Olympic title because his coach made him take high risks that led to a fall. Afterward, every time he was on the slopes and felt the same sensations before the fall, he will slow down, he became risk averse.
You cannot manage people properly if you don’t listen to their needs, wants, aspirations, dreams, areas of interest, and development. You cannot manage people unless you care about their well-being as much as you care for their performance.
It is not enough to ace the metrics, it got to be sustainable and without harming others.
What about you, do you think empathy is the solution or the problem for the manager who is trying to achieve both performance and well-being in the workplace?
Nad Philips, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Nad is an adult learning and development, global consultant. He specializes in helping teams design prosocial relationships and become future fit. Prior to coaching Nad served as European VP and MD France for a Fortune 500 company. He was an honorary professor with ESSEC Business school. Nad also launched several startups in Europe. He is an Amazon best-selling author and lives in Paris, France.
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