Leadership and Empathy
by Laurie Wilhelm
The Harvard Business Review recently published an article co-written by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis, Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership. The one-line summary (as much as one line can summarize an eight-page article!) reads,
“New studies of the brain show that leaders can improve group performance by understanding the biology of empathy.”
Empathetic leaders? Hmmmmm…you don’t often hear that.
There are a lot of negative connotations associated with the word ‘leader.’ Ruthless. Ambitious. Cunning. Driven. Hard-nosed. But Ghandi was one of the great leaders and negative adjectives aren’t attributed to him. Maybe leaders can be empathetic, they just have to be aware of the benefits of being so.
While the article is short, it’s full of good information. It deals mostly with mood contagion (which stems from neurobiology) that refers to the way someone’s behaviour can either energize or weaken a team, department or organization. While this isn’t new – we all know how a cranky boss have ruin everyone’s work environment – what Goleman and Boyatzis do is take us through the biology of such effects to prove that there is some brain action and that someone’s mood isn’t just a soft-and-fluffy management style.
Before going any further, let’s just clarify what is social neuroscience: “the study of what happens in the brain while people interact.” A leading finding in this science is that when leaders display empathy and are aware of the moods of others, the brain chemistry of both the leader and the follower are affected.
How wild is that?
What Happens with Leaders with Poor Social Skills?
Goleman and Boyatzis go on to say that effective leadership encompasses “a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support you need.”
So what happens to those leaders who don’t emphasize empathy? It’s not that leaders who are unempathetic are not successful and have poor quarterly results. It’s that the degree of success they have could be greater if they were more socially aware. This could be one of the factors that separate the top-performers from the mid-performers.
The worst-case scenario for ensuring a short executive life was studied by their colleague Claudio Fernandez-Araoz. He found that in some situations top executives were fired, not for deficiencies in their intelligence and determination, but because of their considerable lack of basic social skills.
Then Goleman and Boyatzis explore other neuroscience discoveries with mirror neurons, spindle cells, and oscillators in regard to social intelligence. However, those areas are way too complex for me to try to discuss here…and I’d probably mess it all up anyway. If you want the whole story, you’ll have to purchase a copy of the article from Harvard Business Review. (It’s only $6.50.)
They conclude with an impressive case study of a top executive whose social inabilities frustrated everyone – from her subordinates to top management. What was surprising to me was that she was completely oblivious to how her negative behaviour was drastically affecting the department. Although she was on the brink of being fired, her boss saw her potential and brought in an organization psychologist to work with her on her social issues. After a 360-degree evaluation, much hard work and some time, this executive not only kept her job but also she performed better and interacted more effectively with her colleagues. Her department increased its annual sales and she was made the president of a multibillion-dollar unit.
If you’re looking to get ahead in your career, I’d recommend that you take a look at this Goleman and Boyatzis article and get to work on your social skills. It may well give you the upper-hand you need to secure that promotion you’ve been eyeing.
