Empathy has gained traction over the last few years as a key leadership trait.
And I agree that it’s an essential soft skill in any manager’s skillset. However, many overlook its various uses in the workplace.
For me, empathy is more than understanding and supporting others through their hardships. It also involves:
- Managing difficult interactions with or between others
- Providing thoughtful feedback
- And navigating complex team dynamics
In short, it’s an essential skill for engineering managers (EMs). And it’s one introverts like you are already primed to use.
Introverts and empathy go hand-in-hand
As an introvert, you spend more time observing people than others. This can and likely has led you to a deeper awareness of other people’s emotions.
I’m not saying extroverts aren’t empathetic – I know many who are. However, I believe introverts develop empathy differently and are more geared to doing so.
Let me explain with an example.
Think back to a meeting where others were dominating the conversation. Most likely, these individuals were extroverts. Not always, but usually.
Now, consider what the introverts in the meeting were doing at the time, including yourself. Most likely (if you weren’t working on something else), you and they were listening to the discussion. You and they were taking the time to process what you heard and understand the information.
Because you weren’t spending time thinking of a response or responding, you were able to determine the emotion driving those who were. This likely led you to notice they were frustrated, angry, or excited, for example. And having this knowledge better informed your eventual response to them and the situation.
People who don’t leverage empathy often miss the nuances of others’ behavior. This leads to misunderstandings or less effective interactions.
This is not a criticism, though – everyone makes mistakes. But it is a missed opportunity, and the impacts are enormous. The same is true when you make use of empathy. This is something that, again, you are more prepared for and practiced at using as an introvert.
4 important uses of empathy as an EM
It’s well known that empathy can help a team member with major hardships they might be going through, such as:
- Health issues affecting their ability to work
- Children and the pressures of parenthood
- Divorces and separations
- And bereavements
Of course, empathizing with others in these situations is the right thing to do – we all need help and understanding.
Taking this step also helps:
- Build a relationship with your team member
- Support their mental health
- And show them you’re trustworthy
Creating this kind of environment also improves retention rates.
However, the extent of your relationship with your team members often depends on your company’s culture.
For instance, in some companies, you may not have an opportunity to develop the necessary insight into your team’s personal lives. In others, you may have more chances to be on more friendly, personal terms with them.
So, depending on your environment, you might not ever face these major issues. Regardless, there are other effective ways to utilize your empathy in day-to-day situations.
1 - Managing arguments and disagreements
The ability to read people and notice their emotions is an effective tool for managing disputes. Say, for example, you’re in a meeting, and tensions start rising.
When people are in a disagreement, they often cannot control their emotions. They register what someone else is saying as a personal attack and retaliate.
As an introvert, you’re in a position to take a step back and use your empathy to de-escalate the argument effectively.
To be more specific, using empathy in this situation allows you to:
- Notice the early signs of escalation, potentially giving you the chance to intervene before it worsens
- Remain calm and measured in your responses, helping set the tone for the discussion
- Acknowledge and validate others’ emotions, reducing the likelihood of further escalation
- Highlight those emotions, which others likely missed
- Redirect the conversation and move from conflict to problem-solving
This becomes an even more valuable use of empathy once you realize and accept conflicts will happen in the workplace. In addition, conflict can be good if it’s handled appropriately, which empathy also plays a key role in.
2 - Anticipating reactions
When you empathize with your team, you also gain improved insights into:
- Their motivations
- Their sources of stress
- And patterns in their behavior
Your heightened observation and understanding allow you to pick up on emotional cues.
For example, pretend you’re in a meeting with a stakeholder. Your empathy could help you detect their dissatisfaction with the project you’re presenting, even if they’re not verbalizing it.
Because of this, you can:
- Address their concerns proactively
- Resolve them before they escalate
- And adapt your approach accordingly
In other words, empathy enables you to anticipate other people’s reactions to various situations and react appropriately.
3 - Providing feedback
Empathy also plays a crucial role in giving feedback.
For example, an individual contributor (IC) may respond well to recognition, so you can factor this into your approach. Or you may anticipate another IC struggling with the pressure of a deadline. In that case, you can plan to offer support, additional resources, or flexibility.
Empathy is also effective when you make a mistake while providing feedback. For example, you may think your IC will respond well to more direct language, only to find out they don’t. Without empathy, discovering and understanding this revelation becomes much harder, if not impossible.
Regardless of what someone needs from your feedback, empathy gives you a chance to determine what it is and adjust your communication to match.
4 - Managing a spectrum of workers
People's work ethic ranges widely in any field of work, not just software engineering.
At one end, there’s the reliable contributor. This team member gives it their all and continually exceeds expectations.
At the other end, there’s the casual contributor. They do the bare minimum and rely on others to do the heavy lifting.
Combined, this creates unfair team interactions, where the reliable contributors constantly make up for the casual contributors’ slack. And it’s easy to overlook these issues as an EM when your team is delivering results.
As an introvert, you can more readily peer past the results to determine which team members sit where on the spectrum. Using that information, you can address and solve any problems quickly and with understanding. Doing so improves work culture and, again, improves retention rates.
The short version: harness your natural abilities
Empathy is a powerful, multifaceted skill. It's also one of the many benefits of being an introverted leader.
But it’s about more than understanding what someone’s going through in life and offering support. Empathy is also a key part of managing and improving work interactions and results.
This includes the following key uses:
- Conflict resolution: reading people’s emotions to quickly detect escalations, acknowledge and validate their thinking, and redirect
- Effective communication: noticing emotions often overlooked by others, allowing you to anticipate reactions and respond accordingly
- Team management: managing a variety of work ethics, noticing uneven productivity, addressing it, and ensuring everyone carries their own workload
In short, empathy is an extremely useful and necessary skill for EMs.
Used effectively, it can:
- Strengthen working relationships with team members
- Lower turnover
- And create a more high-performing team
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Originally published on Medium.com
