on May 24, 2022
It can be easy to reduce the concept of empathy to a vague value that you were taught since kindergarten. Having empathy means having the ability to understand another’s feelings and experiences. It’s why we cry tears of joy at weddings, send condolences to someone who lost a loved one, or ask our coworkers if they need our help. Empathy can apply to any situation, and it’s a feeling we may experience several times on a daily basis without being aware of it.
Even being unintentionally empathetic, however, can move you forward in many ways towards success. Particularly regarding professional goals, having a good sense of empathy delivers on more relationships and opportunities while simultaneously making project completion and task management more efficient.
Empathy in a career setting makes you a more favorable person to work with and can lead others to want to connect with you. This can open the door to more ideas, opportunities, and benefits. Listed below are four specific ways in which empathy can lead to success in your professional life.
1. Overall Performance Improvement
If you are in tune with the needs of your fellow employees, duties run more efficiently. A study conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership analyzing over 6,000 managers in 38 countries found a positive correlation between workplace empathy and job performance. Empathetic managers tend to better recognize burnout in their employees, help their employees more readily, and build better employee relationships that benefit communication and morale. For these reasons, empathy improves overall workplace performance.
2. Better Team Engagement
Empathy creates a more productive team. By understanding what your fellow team members need from you, projects run more efficiently. According to a study examining empathy and team decision-making, empathy promotes “cooperation by reducing the rate of unjustified defection.” Better cooperation means better team efficiency, improving productivity and professional relationships.
3. Awareness of Opportunities
Empathy helps you understand what others need from you. If you also know what you can provide others in the first place, this is key. Empathy can guide you into finding people and opportunities that would benefit from your professional skills. By understanding what coworkers and clients need, this improves marketing, relationships, networking, and exposure.
4. Stronger Interpersonal Skills
One of John Academy’s top 10 interpersonal skills employers look for is emotional intelligence, which they defined as the ability to “perceive, recognise (sic), evaluate, and manage one’s own and others’ emotions.” Having the ability to read emotions well tells employers how employees will respond to conflicts and client complaints. Empathy also gives employers a favorable idea on how an employee will connect with their fellow coworkers.
Empathy is a softer skill that can be easily overlooked and underestimated. However, being more understanding of your employees and clients, knowing intuitively what others need from you, and reading work situations better improves your relationships and productivity. The best thing about empathy—it’s one of the easier professional skills to improve upon, providing yourself and your team benefits that compound over time.