EMPATHY- A Skill to Understand People

Empathy is the medicine, the world needs- Judith Orloff 

Empathy, often confused with sympathy, is when you are able to sense other people’s emotions and to understand their perspective on a particular situation. It enables you to use your acumen to improve someone else’s mood. In simple terms, empathy is putting yourself into someone else’s shoes.

To a certain extent, we, the human beings, are created in a way that we can empathize with other people. Like we laugh on seeing someone laughing or we wince on seeing an accident. Only a few of us possess excellent natural empathy. But the best part of empathy is that, it’s a mix of talent and training. We can teach ourselves to be better at empathy. It simply needs understanding ourselves, understanding others and non-verbal empathy.

Although empathy is important in almost every aspect of our life, still it’s not always a priority.

Today’s scenario calls for an evolved approach to management and leadership.

Empathy has three important elements- listening, openness and understanding. It is an emotional skill that needs to be adopted and practice so as to prove oneself as a good leader.

It allows us to have compassion for others, relate to friends, loved ones, co- workers and strangers and it has a large benefit impact on the world. One of the most important ability of 21st century is to empathize. According to the researchers, 98 % people can empathize with others but not everyone has the courage to display it.

There are three types of empathy:

1. Cognitive empathy
2. Emotional/Affective empathy
3. Compassionate empathy/ Empathetic concern

Cognitive empathy implies understanding how someone else feels and also what they might be thinking.

Emotional empathy, in turn, is concerned with your ability to share other person’s emotions. For example, feeling sad when someone in front of you is sad.

Compassionate empathy refers to bringing feelings to actions.

Empathy at workplace:

Everyone is unique in terms of their values, cultural understandings, background and perspectives. Being empathetic brings many benefits like strong working relationships, boosting creative thinking, enhancing communication skills.

According to the studies, empathy makes people good managers and employees as it enhances employee engagement, improves work performance and ultimately job satisfaction.

Empathy in personal life:

Caring, nurturing and understanding plays an important role in building strong personal relationships. Without being empathetic, we cannot maintain strong bonding with any of our family member, may it be, your wife, husband, kid, parents, siblings, neighbors.

In this current pandemic situation, almost everyone is going through tough time. The present situation demands us to be empathetic with each other. We need to put on our empathy hats to support and encourage each other to come out of this dreadful situation.

In a nutshell, empathy is connecting mentally and emotionally with each other to spread positivity in the air, to bring back the lost smile on the faces. Only our efforts can sow the seeds of positivity. 

-Ms. Shreshtha Bohra
(Assistant Professor)
Greater Noida Institute Of Technology

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