EMPATHY IN LEADERSHIP

Servant- Leadership begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The best test is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants...Robert Greenleaf


Why do people still complain about bad leadership and governance? How come they don’t see anything good in what the leadership is doing, is it that the leaders’ strategies are not working or could it possibly be that the people are insatiable? Don’t wonder too far, guess I have a clue. It does not always work when you try to put a square peg in a round hole.

For a better understanding of empathy in leadership lets take a look at how the dictionary defined empathy and leadership and what relationship exist between the two words. A formal definition of Empathy is the ability to identify and understand another’s situation, feelings and motives. It’s our capacity to recognize the concerns other people have. Empathy means: “putting yourself in the other person’s shoes” or “seeing things through someone else’s eyes”.

Leadership is about ascertaining a method for people to contribute so that it can result in a significant achievement. It is a process that enables a person to influence others to achieve a goal and directs an organization to become rational and consistent. Leaders carry out these processes by leveraging their leadership traits such as values, ethics and knowledge. Good leaders are not born. They are made. If a person has the willpower and the ability to learn, he can become a successful leader. A good leader engages in a continuous process of education, experience and training. He studies to improve his leadership skills and does not rest on past glory.

If empathy and leadership are symbiotic siblings how come they are not seen together in some aspects of leadership? A leader cannot be empathic if he has not experienced or learnt what the led go through. If empathy is feeling what the led feel and putting yourself in the other person’s shoes then we need to know how far this has gone in our democratic dispensation where people have the say about who should lead them.
Until we have leaders with empathy in places of authority, those who have felt the kind of pain people feel, who have been through the rugged road people are presently treading, who feels or have felt what people feel, attending to the follower’s needs and aspirations will be difficult.

Little wonder the system of government where a sojourner who has traveled for over decades to study abroad returns and suddenly shows interest in politics, and because he has a fine face and fantastic diction we all fall for him and elect him into a leadership position. How can he understand what is obtainable in the system, will such leader not find it unnecessary to visit the poor and resigned in our remotest villages.

The leaders who are making impact presently are those who have put ears to the ground and felt the pain and cry of the downtrodden. Why do you think the president of the United States of America, Barrack Obama got a land mark victory that took him to the white house? He was empathic, if you have read his best seller book, (Audacity of Hope) you would discover how much time and energy he spent traveling to rural, suburban and urban areas all in the bid to listen and know the yearnings of the people. Strategically it worked because he was able to address the core issues of the people of America that both great and small were looking for.

As a country, we seem to be suffering from empathy deficit because where we put our time, energy and money is the test of what we value. Barrack Obama said: “Unless political leaders are open to new ideas and not just packaging, we won’t change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy policy or tame the deficit”.
We need to go back to the roots and learn about the people we lead. After all, listening is one of the skills a good leader must possess and communication has not taken place without feedback as it is a vital part of communication process.

Is it possible to have a program or platform which seeks to scrutinize prospective leaders on several grounds? Is it necessary to take time to find out background information about leaders before they are elected? Can their backgrounds and experience in life have a great influence on their system of leadership? I think that if we take time to consider the above before we elect a leader, we might be able to discover the suitability of a leader. It is necessary to tidy up these areas because if a man has not been successful in his private life and business, it’s not far from the truth to say that the possibility of his success in the public office is very slim.

Great servant-leaders nurtured empathy: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa certainly exemplify empathy in leadership.

Favour.

Published in Financial Standard, 13/08/09, page 11.