In his 1995 book “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Daniel Goleman, the eminent author who popularized the elements of emotional intelligence, said it best: “If you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”
In fact, it’s one of the most important skills in an agile leader’s toolkit. Empathy helps you to understand your team members’ needs and motivations, which helps you identify where they’re struggling and why they might be on the brink of quitting. It lets you work with them more effectively to solve problems—and even make the process fun!
Although it has always been a vital leadership talent, empathy is now being given more weight and importance. It is far from a soft approach and can produce important corporate outcomes.
As you may already know, displaying empathy is beneficial to individuals, but it is also valuable to anything from innovation to retention. Empathy is at the top of the list of qualities that great leaders must master in order to create the conditions for engagement, happiness, and performance.
Empathy also makes you more effective at giving constructive feedback. Rather than just delivering a critique or criticism, empathy-focused leaders are able to recognize their team members’ feelings when they’re hurt and offer support instead. This kind of feedback can be incredibly beneficial because it shows how much the person cares about working together, which means that they’ll want to do well and perform at their best for as long as possible.