Empathic ability, a ‘must’!

One of the most essential attributes as a manager is empathic behaviour. However, this ability is frequently confused with being friendly and too kind to your employees or being "weak". A highly undesired assumption!

I recently watched an interview with the fire chief of the Amsterdam Fire brigade. An interesting interview with a manager facing to change an organisation that was led by management who only let go and looked the other way, for many years. In those years, the people in the organisation developed their own culture, rules and way of working together.

After three years attempting to change this culture, this fire chief was asked to leave by the mayor of Amsterdam. Totally not judging his approach and the enormous complexities he faced, it did somehow trigger me to write this blog.

There are many different management styles. Going from being highly directive to coaching and let-go. There is no rulebook that prescribes the style that is most suitable at any given time. It is merely very much driven by the particular situation and circumstances at hand. Understandably, 'management' in the army is much more likely to be extremely directive in most circumstances.

However, managing teams of pure professionals is much more likely to shift predominantly to coaching and let-go. In most cases the environment you are working in is in between those boundaries.

This is where your emphatic abilities come into place. If you take the time to understand and interpret behaviour, feelings and mindset of people, it is much easier to adjust your management style towards the team or individual to get the best outcome.

The broader your options are in management styles and your capabilities to switch, the stronger you will be in your role as a manager. However, you should never hesitate to act if needed and use your directive style if people are undecisive, in need of direction, or simply unwilling.

As a manager you are respected and trusted when you are transparent, clear in your views and speak out your expectations. Emphatic in this context means you know when to be tough, believing this is the right thing to do for a better outcome and when to give leeway and be invisible when people know what is asked from them and know how to do their job.