According to recent studies presented in Forbes, empathy is one of the most important attributes of a connected and inspiring leader. Bringing in empathetic decision making into your leadership leads to employee retention and a positive workplace, but as a leader you must know what type of empathy will work best for not only your employees, but yourself as well.
Forbes published that a recent study found 74% of employees agree that workplace culture has a direct impact on how they serve customers. This means not only will your team be happy, but your customers will reap the benefits of empathetic leadership as well.
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Compassionate Empathy
While it is important to incorporate empathy into your everyday leadership tasks, it is important to know the types of empathy and which to use. Daniel Goleman lists the three types of empathy as emotional, cognitive, and compassionate.
Emotional empathy is defined as feeling what another person feels and becoming emotionally invested in their burdens. Cognitive empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another but do not fully invest yourself in it emotionally. These first two both have their downsides, cognitive empathy can make you a distant leader, but emotional empathy can cause your emotional health to be burdened just as much as your employee’s.
Goleman says the perfect type is compassionate empathy, a combination of cognitive and emotional empathy. You not only understand their predicament and connect with your employee emotionally about the subject matter, but you take it a step further by acting to help in the matter.
Now that you know the type of empathy a leader should be using, here are some of the factors driven by empathetic leadership.
Empathy Decreases Stress in the Workplace
In a recent study by Georgetown University, workplace rudeness has been emerging in the recent year. They found that this can lead to poor performance and customer service, decreased collaboration, and increased employee turnover.
Furthermore, a different study presented in Forbes found that empathy can be used to reduce insolence behavior. They found that 86% of participants agreed that when their leader used a more empathetic approach, they were better able to balance their work life and personal life. 76% of participants said that having an empathetic leader also led them to be more engaged during the workday, leading to higher performance and productivity.
Empathy Increases Employee Retention
One of the biggest problems businesses are facing is employee turnover. In 2021 the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. employee turnover rate was 57.3%. Empathetic leadership leads to a more positive workplace as empathy fosters empathy. One way to combat voluntary and involuntary turnover is giving your employees opportunities for reskilling and upskilling. This not only decreases turnover and new trainee costs, but it reflects an empathetic approach, giving your employees access to learn new skills and help them retain their careers. A great way to upskill is through Minetum’s Business Consulting and Executive Coaching programs!
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