Empathy: The secret sauce to great leadership
“This is completely unreasonable, I am expecting complete professional behaviour, I can’t work with such emotional xxxxx.”
Sujit, one of the managers in my team was completely upset with an unnatural behaviour from one of his team members. Sharad on the other hand was really a good person, he had done a wonderful job in the past. His last mistake was a bit unexpected.
“Calm down Sujit. Yes, it is terrible, this can mean a loss of significant new business. Why do you think Sharad is doing this? Did you try to find out?”
“Not yet, but I am so upset, that I don’t want to ask him a single question.”
“I understand. There are times when you need to put aside your own viewpoint and see things from the other person’s perspective. This is not regular behaviour. Something is not right, and the only way to fix it is to find what it is. Wait till tomorrow morning, and talk to him over a cup of coffee.”
The next day, when I noticed the happiness on the face of Sujit as well as Sharad, I was quite sure that the matter was resolved.
Being emotionally overwhelmed and reacting out of it is natural, but giving a pause and understanding the other person’s view can save a lot of unnecessary consequences.
Have you faced this one before? How did you deal with it?
