Empathetic Leadership – Jacinda leads the way.

Many people have been thrust into leadership positions during Covid – 19.

Jenny Harries, Marcus Rashford and frontline NHS workers to name a few.

They are all amazing examples of people stepping up, doing their bit in the interest of others, coming forward speaking up to help and leading on a real purpose to make a difference to the lives of others.

The very best example of empathetic leadership of late and certainly over the course of the Coronavirus crisis is Jacinda Ardern.

A shining example of an exemplary modern leader, leading from the heart as well as the head for the greater good.

So, What is Empathy?

The subject of empathy comes up pretty much in every conversation around leadership and no more so than of late following the Pandemic.

Commonly described as the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes, empathy is the ability to understand another person’s experience, perspective and feelings and a key competency of Emotional Intelligence.  

Empathy essentially is the ability to be able to sense what is going on with the other person without them telling you so. It is the passive communication in which you read a person’s gestures, their tone of voice, the sense of feeling, the non-verbal’s.

Most leaders acknowledge that empathy is a really important part of leadership and to really excel in this quality, it has to start with the leader themself because if they are not very tuned into themselves, it turns out that they are not going to be that good at tuning into other people.

This is where Jacinda Ardern comes into her own.

Most leaders understand the key components of empathy, the cognitive and emotional parts which come from the brain where the deep study and understanding of being able to see the other persons point of view when looking at the issue or problem or seeing it from the other persons perspective.

Picking up other people’s emotions, to gain rapport and build trust is a large part of being empathetic.

But high-performance leadership, the Jacinda kind which seems to be in real demand now and for the foreseeable future, requires an additional ingredient. One which comes, not just from the head but from the heart…empathic concern.

This  kind of concern is where you truly care about the people you are leading, and they really know it.

The Secret Ingredient.
Empathic concern adds the caring part to empathy, meaning you are going to act, absolutely without equivocation in that person’s best interest, come what may even if it puts that person before yourself. It is standing up, having the courage to take a stand.

This depth pf concern means people feel seen, heard, supported, and guided to the right place, a safer place.

This concern and caring are what it takes to be the kind of leader that people want to be led by because as a leader, your heart must be in it to be truly an empathetic one.

The father of emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman says:

“To develop empathy fully you must learn to be able to open your heart to be able to recognise, feel and name a range of emotions. Being able to help recognise your own emotions will help you therefore recognise emotions in others.”

There should of course be the setting of limits and boundaries as in all good leadership, but in a way where you are also enabled to inspire and motivate people so they feel protected in a good way - Jacinda demonstrated this in locking down “hard and fast” at the start of the crisis.

Showing Concern Doesn’t Mean Being Soft.
Having concern doesn’t mean leaders protect from every reality but protected from the things that only leaders should take on, rather than the kinds of things that shouldn’t be passed onto everyone else - I did get the feeling that the UK Daily Briefings were beginning to be a little like Groundhog Day. I lost count how many times I shouted at the TV, where’s Boris?

A common misunderstanding of empathy means being nice – a leader being too nice, too popular, not wanting to bring up unpleasant things, not wanting to surface simmering tensions, not wanting to give bad news or negative feedback, all of which are common calls of  today’s leadership and management.

Too much empathy in teams is a frequent problem – highly empathetic team leaders and team members often refrain from providing constructive feedback to team members who break organisational norms or underperform on the team and can become poor role models. One of the most common problems in teams is an over focus on this which can also be a detriment…take the Dominic Cummings saga.

Guiding people is very important and setting limits is important. Giving feedback in a “news to use” format and in the moment is required (Jacinda thinks nothing of a live Facebook post in the moment), not in a put down, or in a dismissal way.

We Are All Leaders.
We all have some leverage, some sphere of influence, certain expertise, our position, our standing to help people to a greater good.

The good news is empathy and emotional intelligence is something we can get better at, it is like anything, it needs practice to be better.

We can be better. It is learned and learnable and coaching is the most effective way to do it.

Leading from the heart as well as the head is the secret to true empathetic leadership, the kind Jacinda has in spades and for the greater good of us all. Let her be the true empathetic leader, the shining example for us all as leaders to follow.

#leadership #empathy #management #jacindaardern #emotionalintelligence #leaders