“Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,

even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.”

Max Ehrmann. (1927). Desiderata.

Leadership, by its very nature, requires interaction with people: staff, customers, suppliers, and, more broadly, the wider community. It is easier to conceive how a leader could be effective with effective pastoral care skills and listening skills, especially listening with empathy. The unwillingness of a leader to listen to others and, importantly, be prepared to take their counsel is a leader who most likely demonstrates narcissistic traits. A leader who cannot listen most likely lacks empathy.

To be clear, listening is needed for empathy. Empathy is about putting yourself in another person’s situation, trying to understand their feelings and emotions and perhaps even the force that is driving them at that particular point in time. As the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it, Empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” There is, of course, a logical caveat here. Any Anthropologist will tell you that you can never know what the emotions, thoughts, or feelings of another person really are. Emotions often have a biochemical basis unique to the individual. What you are seeking to do is to form some understanding and insight as to the emotions, feelings, and thoughts of another so as to better inform whatever actions might occur. This requires genuine listening and giving quality time and attention to the other person and their issue(s). That said, the great leaders that have influenced your journey so far most likely had empathy as a key leadership trait. In his outstanding book “Trust and Inspire’, Stephen M. R. Covey makes this astute observation.

If you consider the leaders who have most influenced and inspired you, you’ll likely find they have modeled these behavioral virtues:

Humility and Courage

Authenticity and Vulnerability

Empathy and Performance

Covey, Stephen. M. R., with Kasperson, David., Covey, McKinlee.,and Judd Gary T. (2022) Trust & Inspire (eBook). London. UK: Simon & Schuster. (Ch5. p127 of 392 pages).

Covey makes a great point here. Empathy is one of the six key behavioral virtues found in great leaders. The case for leaders to be more skilled in listening, particularly listening with empathy, is compelling. The reality is your staff and your teams live in a world where the need to belong is fundamental to everything they do. Whether it’s their personal or professional life, family life or work life, all people address the same questions around the world daily. Simply: How do I know I belong here? How do I know my concerns are being heard? How do I know that I fit in? Listening with empathy, by its nature, is often associated with ‘active listening’ and self-awareness’. It is important to note that empathic listening is quite distinct from ‘active-listening’.

Pastoral Care Workers in hospitals regularly use active listening and empathic listening and are conscious of their posture and the tone of their voice. These are key to listening to patients’ concerns, especially those facing the end of life. In that scenario, giving free advice, making comments and judgments, and thinking of what you will say next all suggest that the patient wasn’t the center of attention then. Pretending to listen when you aren’t is an appalling waste of the other person’s time. It sends the message that they don’t belong in your world. When it comes to working with the family of a person facing the end of life, nothing short of listening with empathy will work, given the range of emotions in play. Come back to the opening quote for this article. The famous line from Desiderata by Max Ehrmann: “listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story,” has real currency here. Stephen M. R. Covey captures this important concept well.

“In a world increasingly divided and polarized, with everyone talking but so few listening, no one feels truly understood…Simply waiting for your turn to reply isn’t empathy. Empathy is understanding. It’s understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings, experiences, and point of view. It’s not evaluating or interpreting; it’s not agreeing or disagreeing. It’s simply understanding. It’s being able to get into and see things from the other person’s frame of reference rather than only from your own.”

Covey, Stephen. M. R., with Kasperson, David., Covey, McKinlee.,and Judd Gary T. (2022) Trust & Inspire (eBook). London. UK: Simon & Schuster. (Ch5. p137 of 392 pages).

What does empathy look like? Consider this hypothetical scenario.

Your mother is in aged care and has found herself with Dementia. Over time, her memory of the present has disappeared, and she now has memories of the 1950s and 1960s as if they were yesterday. She still remembers the children she gave birth to in the 1960s. You greet your mother at the door to the room and introduce yourself so she can remember your name. You make sure that when she looks up at you, you smile and are happy to be there. A smile comes to your mother’s face. Remembering her to be classically trained in Piano in her younger years, you bring a piece of music by her favorite composer, Schubert, sung by her favorite singer, Pavarotti. The song finishes, and suddenly, she comes to life and starts chatting about things (from the 1950s and 1960s). You pay attention to her and even lean in to meet her in conversation. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know what she is talking about. She is sharing her story and her real or unreal concerns with you then. You know this and discover that you can keep the conversation going by asking simple questions like: How are you? What’s on your mind? You seem worried. Would you like to talk about it? You laugh with her, you feel her sadness, and you try to understand where she is at that moment. You say goodbye and leave her smiling as you walk out of the door.

An Important Take-Away

Your mother experienced some peace and joy for that brief moment in time. This is because you took the time to understand where your mother was coming from and her concerns that day. You suspended judgments and allowed her to ‘be herself,’ which meant your mother experienced some healing for a brief moment. This empathy is extremely important in clinical situations, as described above. It is equally powerful in relationships, personal and professional.

Why did your visit to your mother go so well?

From the beginning you:

• Ensured her dignity was respected.
• Treated her as though she was the most important person in the world, which she was.
• Suspended all judgments and held back on offering critique.
• Simply allowed her to talk, you didn’t talk over her.
• Recognized that her frame of reference is different to yours.
• Demonstrated a true desire to understand her.
• Used smiling and laughter to trigger Oxytocin and create a warm, trusting environment.
• Mimic her body language, to show that you’re ‘in sync’ with her.
• Find a point of commonality (eg. Schubert), to be used as a springboard for understanding.
• Are mindful of the states of emotion at play.
• Used a range of questions to gain understanding and keep the conversation flowing.
• Left the conversation with her knowing that you genuinely tried to understand her.

If leaders wish to be highly effective, they need to learn to have empathy, to listen with empathy, to understand and be prepared to walk with the team. The above list is a good place to start for any leader wanting to embrace empathy In their leadership.

In his outstanding book ‘The Excellence Dividend’, Tom Peters puts forward the case for leaders to not just embrace empathy but to lead with it.

“When we talk about the qualities we want in people, empathy is big. If you empathize with people, you can do a good job. If you cannot empathize, it’s difficult to give people feedback, and it is challenging to help people improve. Everything becomes harder.

One way that empathy manifests itself is courtesy…It’s not just a veneer of politeness, but actually trying to anticipate and meet someone else’s needs in advance.”

Peters, Tom. (2018) The Excellence Dividend:  Principles for Prospering in Turbulent Times from a Lifetime in Pursuit of Excellence (eBook). London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. (Ch 3. p161 of 496 pages).

There are also some fairly straightforward things you can do to enhance your empathy skills. Writing for ‘Positive Psychology,’ Dr Christina R. Wilson outlines and explains seven ways to improve empathic awareness and listening.

Empathic awareness skills

1. Recognize the inherent dignity and value in myself as well as the speaker.
2. Instill a personal desire to want to listen to others.
3. Think of positive qualities of the other person.

Empathic listening skills

1. Transform my listening skills and quiet my mind.
2. I will listen through the words, fully and openly.
3. I vow not to interrupt people.
4. Say back to the speaker what they said to me, capturing the emotion.

Wilson, Christina R. (2024). How to Improve Your Empathic Listening Skills: 7 Techniques.

If the leader wants to be seen as one who cares about people, empathy must be part of their daily toolkit. For that to happen, the leader should ensure that their ‘inner life’ is vibrant and healthy. Leading with empathy and embracing the care of others can be exhausting, meaning self-care is essential. Leaders who know and understand themselves are likely to have a much better chance of understanding others. The leader would be wise to look at a program of care for everyone. Schools, universities, and hospitals often have programs of ‘Pastoral Care’, in which the focus is on the holistic care of the student or patient, as the case may be. They usually embrace notions of journeying with the people under their care and have programs that will support their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Often, they move the empathic listening to coaching for professional and personal growth. This is at the heart of organizational improvement.

“A learning culture emerges as a by-product of practice with a new way of working—one that is more interdependent, more aware of others’ tasks and needs, and more willing to improve—not the other way around.”

Edmondson, Amy C. (2012). Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy (eBook). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Ch 8. p269-270 of 327 pages).