During coaching for several Emerging Leaders, we encounter a pattern where they struggle to grow from Individual Contributor to a Lead role, like Team Lead or Manager or Technical Lead.
One of the key reasons we notice is lack of Empathy – ability to sense other people’s emotional make up and to interface with them accordingly.
Empathy is one of the key components of Emotional Intelligence, which is the bedrock of Leadership – very relevant even in Technical Career paths and in any role for that matter.
Many times, Empathy is misunderstood as Sympathy – there is a subtle difference, but a significant impact. We use a story to illustrate this:
| There was a little girl observing a butterfly coming out of the cocoon, struggling to break open the shell. Little girl thought the poor butterfly is struggling hard and going through pain, let me help. She broke open the shell. Butterfly came out. But it couldn’t fly. The very act of butterfly struggling & breaking the shell strengthens its wings to enable it to fly. |
The act of this little girl – is it Empathy or Sympathy?
It’s Sympathy, isn’t it? If she was empathetic, she would have known that the struggle is good for the butterfly and allowed it.
Victims of Sympathy
Many times, we become victims of sympathy in our upbringing & education, unknowingly. Especially the affluent parents disable their children with over-protection, over-care and instant gratification of their desires/demands. This creates a psychological conditioning which plays into work-life as well.
Such people subconsciously develop a sense of entitlement – I should get what I want, instantly; they expect others to take care of them, instead of they taking ownership and responsibility to take care of others, especially as Managers/Leaders. They crave for recognition rather than they recognizing others. They will not know how to deal with failures and how to receive feedbacks. They may lack courage to take risks, take actions & decisions on their own.
Essentially, they do not grow out of their comfort zone.
Accidental Diminishers
Liz Wiseman, in her well-researched book ‘The Multipliers’, writes about Accidental Diminishers ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZlg-mJA-Co&t=14s 20 min video) – as managers or leaders or parents, with our best intentions we want to help people/children become strong & capable, but our action has exact opposite result – we actually weaken them & disable them. She calls this pattern as the ‘Rescuer’ – one who jumps in to solve the problem rather than help the person/child to find the solution. Such Managers/Leaders/Parents do not develop other people/children, instead they diminish their capabilities.
Ratan Tata example
In one of the interviews Ratan Tata shares about his early career: After finishing his graduation in US and working for an year at US, his grand mother requested him to come back to India, as she loved him very much. He was asked to work in Tata Steel at Jamshedpur, on probationary for 2 years, not as a Manager/Owner, but as a worker in the shopfloor. He was required to go to factory by bicycle (not car), have lunch at workers’ canteen, …. and no extra privileges than any other worker. He said he rebelled & frowned at that time, but looking back, he says, it was the best thing to happen to shape his life.
Developed Nations
This pattern can be seen at the levels of Nations as well. There are studies which show that immigrant populations, who come through struggles in life, are thriving in Developed Countries, while the native affluent population is underperforming.
Such is the subtlety of Sympathy and the negative impact of Sympathy.
Empathy strengthens people & relationships; Sympathy weakens people & relationships.
Empathy can be short-term pain, but long-term gain; Sympathy is for sure, short-term gain, but long-term pain.
Empathy comes from Compassion; Sympathy comes from Attachment.
Empathy is Emotional Intelligence; Sympathy is Emotional Ignorance. And to discern the two we need to develop higher Self-Awareness, which is the core of Emotional Intelligence, Leadership and even Spiritual growth. Meditation/Mindfulness practices are a great toolset for enhancing Self-Awareness.
