Description
>Empathy has been discussed by several prominent leaders and authors during the past few years. However, we still fail to understand the difference between Empathy and Sympathy. I still find people using both words interchanging and that has led to confusion among individuals in this fast-paced technology age we live in
Empathy: is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place.
Sympathy: is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful
Brene Brown explained the difference so beautifully when she said that Empathy fuels connection, while sympathy drives disconnection There are four qualities of Empathy that are extremely important:
1. Perspective taking: The ability to take the perspective of another person.
2. Staying out of judgment:
3. Recognizing emotions in other people
4. Communicating
It is quite interesting to know that there are types of empathy. In other words, empathy is not one type or one shoe that fits all There are 3 types of empathy:
1. Affective Empathy: the ability to respond to other people’s emotions appropriately.
2. Somatic Empathy: the ability to feel what another person is feeling.
3. Cognitive Empathy: the ability to understand someone’s response to a situation
However, what I find interesting is that most successful companies, who have friendly and open culture are more empathetic than those who have toxic cultures. The reason for this is that Empathy impacts the workplace with the following benefits
1. Improve communication
2. Strengthen work relationships
3. Boosts creative thinking
4. Improve companies’ revenue growth.
5. Increase employee morale.
6. Impacts job interviews.
Then the question to finally asks ourselves how can companies encourage empathy
1. Talk about Empathy
2. Teach Mindful listening skills
3. Encourage genuine perspective taking
4. Cultivate compassion
5. Increase Employee morale