This is the seventh blog within the author’s series of Emotional Intelligence in Business...

 

 

Today’s post is from our archives at  SafeSourcing Inc.

This is the seventh blog within the author’s series of Emotional Intelligence in Business explaining empathy and how it will affect and help your business. Despite a bevy of research and best-selling books on the topic, many managers still downplay emotional intelligence as a “touchy-feely” soft skill₁. The importance of characteristics like empathy and self-awareness is understood, sure_, but intelligence and technical capability are seen as the real drivers of professional success₁. Evidence suggests quite the opposite: that high emotional intelligence (EI) is a stronger predictor of a success₁. In fact, high EI bolsters the hard skills, helping us think more creatively about how best to leverage our technical chops₁.

“Empathetic people are superb at recognizing and meeting the needs of clients, customers, or subordinates. They seem approachable, wanting to hear what people have to say. They listen carefully, picking up on what people are truly concerned about, and respond on the mark,” (Goleman, 2015, pp 3).₂

4). Empathy. The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. A skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions.

a.) Hallmarks include expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and service to clients and customers. (In an educational context, empathy is often thought to include, or lead to, sympathy, which implies concern, or care or a wish to soften negative emotions or experiences in others.)₃ 

Three Kinds of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, and Compassionate:

The first is “cognitive empathy,” simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking, this kind of empathy can help in, say, a negotiation or in motivating people. A study at the University of Birmingham found, for example, that managers who are good at perspective-taking were able to move workers to give their best efforts.₄

The second is “emotional empathy,” – when you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious. This emotional contagion, social neuroscience tells us, depends in large part on the mirror neuron system. Emotional empathy makes someone well-attuned to another person’s inner emotional world, a plus in any of a wide range of callings, from sales to nursing.₄

The third is “compassionate empathy,” also known as “empathic concern”, with this kind of empathy we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed_4. It is not out of place at work: you see it when a leader lets people know that he will support them, that she can be trusted, that they are free to take risks rather than maintain a too-safe defensive posture_5.

Please stay tuned for the next and final blog in Emotional Intelligence on how social skills can help you and your business.

We enjoy bringing this blog to you and hope you find value in it. For more information on how we can help you with your procurement needs or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

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_References:

1. _{http://www.dce.harvard.edu/professional/blog/emotional-intelligence-no-soft-skill}
2. _{http://cultureofempathy.com/references/Experts/Daniel-Goleman.htm}
3. _{https://www.sonoma.edu/users/s/swijtink/teaching/philosophy_101/paper1/goleman.htm}
4. _{http://www.danielgoleman.info/three-kinds-of-empathy-cognitive-emotional-compassionate/}
5. _{http://www.danielgoleman.info/empathy-101/}

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