Access the essential membership for Modern Managers
Key Takeaways
- Empathy is a critical workplace skill, helping us to build better relationships and even improve business performance.
- At its core, empathy is the ability to relate to, and understand, the emotions, thoughts and experiences of others.
- It's a multi-faceted skill that can be built and strengthened over time.
Test Your Empathy Skills
Empathy is increasingly recognized by organizations as a critical skill that fosters better relationships, builds trust among colleagues and customers, and can even help win new business. Being able to relate to the emotions, thoughts and experiences of others is central to empathy. And when we understand people better great things can happen.
Empathy isn't something you either have or don't have, it's something that you can develop. Knowing how well you build empathy at work will uncover the things you can do to further improve this skill.
We’ve used research from the Mind Tools Impact and Insights Team to create a 14-question assessment tool, to help you assess your recent experiences with building empathy at work.
Your Self-Assessment
Coming up are 14 questions that ask about how well you have empathized with other people over the past three months.
There are no right or wrong responses, and you’ll have a chance to review and change your answers before you submit them.
Look at the statements below and choose how much you agree with each by selecting the most appropriate answer.
When you have completed the diagnostic, press “Calculate my total.”
Your Result
Take a moment to think about your result. Does it come as a surprise? Or does it confirm things that you already knew?
What, in particular, do you want to get better at? Think about where you currently have gaps – but also why it would benefit you to fill them.
For example, if your result shows that you don't always understand people when you listen to them, you can begin to build your active and empathic listening skills.
If your score suggests that you're an empathic person, consider what you can do even better to continue to strengthen this skill.
Let's Act
Having reflected on your score, pick one of the following areas to take action on in the next week or two:
- How self-aware you are about how you communicate and how others perceive you. (See questions 2, 3 and 4.)
- How you build trust with your colleagues and friends. (See question 5.)
- Your ability to pick up on cues from others. (see questions 6, 7 and 8.)
Take Your Learning Further
Self-awareness and self-regulation
These two skills are critical in cultivating empathy. Developing self-awareness helps us become more aware of how we affect others. Self-regulation enables us to recognize our emotions, and to consider how we respond before it impacts others. Managers who cultivate empathy through becoming more self-aware tend to not only perform better, but lead more productive teams.
Building trust with your team
When you build trust within your team you are also developing empathy. This is because in a high-trust environment people will feel safe, valued and able to be vulnerable. If team members lack trust in each other they will be less willing to communicate openly.
Pick up on cues from others and put yourself in others shoes
There are some simple steps you can take to create stronger connections at work, such as using empathic listening to put yourself in other people's shoes. Understanding body language and working on your questioning skills will also improve your ability to pick up on cues from others.
