Helping Leaders solve people pain...quickly and kindly
 

• Getting heard when they want to ignore you.
• They know how to do it, but they keep "forgetting" to do it
• Pacifying the bulldozer
• You don't want to nitpick, but their work quality doesn't cut it

There's much more.  Click on www.winleadership.com/workshops/influenceskills.htm for the date and the details.

Few leaders know how to really, truly be empathetic.  I've researched empathy and even the academics admit they don't know how to really, truly teach someone how to be empathetic.  For that reason, those leaders who cultivate this skill stand out in the crowd, attract followers and carry enormous influence and yes, even love.

The main benefit of empathy is in helping people get over the past.  Break old habits.  Let go of the "good old days. To empathize is to be able to walk in someone else's shoes without taking on their issues.  Giving empathy is dangerous - one slip and you're either sucked into the mud, or you put up your defenses with a patronizing pat on the back as you walk away shaking your head - both leadership failures from an empathy point of view.

Consider this fact.  Naomi Feil uses empathy in her work to heal Alzheimers patients.  Used in 10,000 agencies worldwide, she calls it Validation Therapy.  In 40 years, not one patient (in the over 70 age group) has slid into the devastating "vegetative" state.  Her technique takes 5 minutes, 3 times a day.  That's the power of empathy.  Go to www.validationvf.org if you want to learn more.

If you're a leader leading change (and what leader isn't?!), then your ability to help people let go is crucial to your success.  Why?  Change involves loss. Loss is emotional.  If a person doesn't get over their emotional loss, it will resurface like a cold virus that kicks in every time your body's defenses are down.  What's the evidence of this at work?  Resentment.  Unhappiness.  Low morale.  Even sabotaging the leader's plans.  Traditional leaders get fed up with this.  It tries their patience.  Understandably so.  However, in that moment, their ability to give empathy vanishes. 

Empathy is a "present moment" skill.  A leader must be able to recognize the moment, and respond sincerely, without hesitation.  While that in itself is quite a skill, that's just the beginning.  Real skill at empathy comes when a leader can give it in the face of direct blame and accusations as being the "cause" of the other person's discontent.  This is the acid test for a leader's empathy skills!

Any Alzheimers caregiver will tell you that this skill is exactly what they've had to learn, with great rewards.  The ability to give empathy develops when a leader learns how to stay "present" in the heat of the moment, not reacting defensively, numbing out, or bolting from the scene. 

Cool and calm, this leader steps out of their own shoes, and sincerely affirms the other person's feelings.  "You're right, I'm doing this and you're feeling the pain from it,"  and so on.  Within minutes, the person calms down.  They've been heard.  Now they can begin to move on.  Maybe not instantly, nor perfectly, but it's the most any leader can do to influence another person during a time of difficult but necessary change.  And it may need to be done many times over the course of weeks & months.

Empathy takes courage, humility and strong personal boundaries.  It's a skill that can be learned by any leader, one present moment at a time.  You just have to experience it to believe it!

sincerely,

John Kuypers
p.s. Jim Collins (author, Good to Great) speaks eloquently to this theme.  Read his Harvard Business Review article called Level 5 Leadership.  Go to www.jimcollins.com/lib/articles.htm

What Would You Do?

You've asked him to do it a dozen times.  He says he will do it but then doesn't!  It makes sense to do it this new way.  He agrees it makes sense.  Yet for some reason, he just doesn't do it.  You're getting frustrated and are tempted to turn up the heat!  What would you do?   click for John's response... or  www.winleadership.com/support/winleaderaction.htm
 

Many leaders fall into this trap.  They meet resistance and they respond by patiently explaining why change is needed, using logical, analytical, research-based "proof", all presented on beautiful powerpoint slides.  When people don't get it, leaders then fall into the traditional leadership trap of having to either pressure people ("do it or else"), or cave in, compromising their plan along the way!

The truth is that for most staff and employees, the new "strategy" often has very little WIIFM! (What's In It For Me).  Therefore, logic (disguised as strategic thinking) is the weakest reason for anyone to embrace change.  Smart managers know this, as Emotional Intelligence has grown in popularity thanks to the efforts of Daniel Goleman and other like-minded management gurus. 

Harold Geneen, the renowned leader of IT&T for twenty years, said it best.

“…no one can teach you leadership.  Everyone reads the same book and yet one manager will get a 40% effort out of his management team and the other will get 80%, and it will depend  upon the manager himself and the hundreds of little things done every day that reveal character.”  

On this basis, I am convinced that strategy is at best 20% of leadership.  The remaining 80% happens word by word, action by action, moment by present moment.

John Kuypers

W.I.N. Leadership Coaching for business executives and managers gets results.  If you're experiencing people pain that's slowing down your success, call us.  We have a growing base of clients who are discovering that getting smart about people is the fastest way to get real world results.  Read this CEO's testimonial... or go to www.winleadership.com/support/testimonials.htm

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