EMPATHIC LEADERSHIP: CHARACTERISTICS, PRINCIPLES AND MODEL - JOB - 2024

The empathic leadership is a type of leadership that allows the leader located at the site of the followers. As its name suggests, it is a type of leadership that uses empathy with others as its main tool.

Empathic leadership is carried out through knowledge of individuals, negotiation skills, and intervention and integration techniques. Carrying out this type of activity allows you to form work teams with a high added value in their actions. Today it gives a certain competitive advantage and manages to increase the performance of the teams.

Empathic leadership is a new leadership alternative that aims to respond to the particular needs of the members that make up the teams.

Currently, empathy is one of the most valued elements in a great diversity of group, which is why more and more organizations choose to use this type of tool.

Emergence of empathic leadership

Empathic leadership arises in response to the basic needs that organizations and work groups increasingly present. In recent years, multiple social movements in different regions of the planet have shown a high rejection of authoritarian and absolutist positions.

In this sense, the leadership of groups of people today requires tools and actions that are different from those used decades ago. Specifically, the need to give personal and individual value to each of the subjects that make up the groups is evident.

Carrying out such actions is a basic aspect in order to increase group motivation and leadership that is accepted, supported and valued by all members. Multiple investigations have shown that empathy is the most effective tool to respond to such needs.

Knowing the interest, needs, concerns and requirements of people provides direct benefits towards these. Likewise, it increases their well-being and increases group cohesion.

It is concluded that empathic leadership can be one of the main tools to improve the functioning of organizations and increase their productivity.

Characteristics of empathic leadership

Empathic leadership encompasses a series of characteristics that define how to manage a team. These characteristics are based on the actions and attitudes that the leader must develop.

In this way, empathic leadership does not define only a type of leadership that incorporates empathy in its activity; it goes much further and currently consists of a well defined and delimited process.

In this sense, empathic leadership has six main characteristics proposed by Guillermo Velazquez Valadez, a researcher at Universidad La Salle in 2005. These should guide the leader's performance and specify the type of relationship that he establishes with the rest of the group.

Enthusiasm

Actions undertaken in empathic leadership should give off a high sense of enthusiasm. That is, the leader takes a fully active role in the direction of the organization.

Leadership must be governed by dynamism and carried out with energy and passion. These elements must not only be developed by the leader, but he also has the responsibility of transmitting them and extending them to each of the individuals.

Warmth

Warmth refers to the affection and understanding that the leader makes of the other subjects in the group.

Empathic leadership should be warm, so you should take a series of actions that show and express affection directly.

This second characteristic requires a certain skill of the leader to relate in an affective way. And it goes far beyond concrete actions that show sensitivity to colleagues.

In fact, the warmth that characterizes empathic leadership defines the relationship that the leader establishes with the members of the group.

This should not be merely technical or professional, but the leader should show concern for each of the needs (professional and personal) of the members.

Serenity

The warmth of empathic leadership can lead to overly emotional or sentimental management. This fact must be overcome through the serenity of leadership.

Warmth should not limit the rationality of the activities undertaken by the leader, quite the contrary.

Empathic leadership requires extensive study and evaluation of all possible solutions and activities to undertake. To carry out such tasks, both the professional and personal aspects of the situation are taken into account.

Just stiffness

The three previous points can call into question the role of the leader before the group. Establishing close relationships with members can be interpreted as a certain loss of power and / or authority.

This factor must be carefully managed by the leader. Despite being warm and empathetic, there must also be a degree of rigidity in empathic leadership.

The leader evaluates and takes into account the needs of all its members, but it must be he who makes the decisions. In this sense, the detection of activities necessary to undertake must be carried out from a subjective and fair point of view.

The leader must adopt a position of not compromising with anyone and putting institutional interests before personal ones. Even so, whenever it can and is fair to do so, it will try to respond to all types of interests that arise in the organization.

Empathy

Obviously, empathy is one of the main characteristics of empathic leadership.

By empathy is understood the cognitive ability to perceive what the other may feel. That is, it consists of developing a series of feelings that allow the person to put themselves in the place of the other.

The empathic leader should adopt this practice routinely in his activity. The specific actions regarding empathy should serve to discover the wishes, needs and requirements of the group members.

Likewise, the information collected through the empathic process should be used to manage the group and decide the activities to undertake. That is, the leader must empathize and be consistent with such action.

Humility

Arrogance and pride are elements that cannot appear in empathic leadership. In fact, when the leader of a group adopts this type of attitude, he is no longer an empathetic leader.

Despite role differences, the empathic leader treats everyone in the group the same. Likewise, he does not differentiate between his personal and professional qualities and those of others.

The differentiation of role, that is, of leader vs. non-leaders, is reflected only in decision-making and management of activities, but does not concern the qualities and personal classification of the members.

The empathic leader does not believe himself better, he simply shows his greater decision-making capacity due to the position and the tasks that affect his figure.

Principles of empathic leadership

8 principles of empathic leadership have been suggested. These must be internalized and shared by the leader, and must guide his behavior. The empathic leader must feel and share these basic elements that guide how people function.

If the leader, whether due to personal convictions, personality traits or interpretation about the functioning of people, does not share these 8 elements, it will be difficult to develop empathic leadership.

This factor shows that not everyone has the characteristics necessary to be an empathetic leader. Likewise, achieving optimal empathic leadership is complicated and requires skills and training.

To develop an empathic leadership process, the leader must share the following principles in both his personal and professional performance:

1- Humanism

The empathic leader must by definition be human. That is, they must be able to understand the personal aspects of the members and manage to integrate them with their own.

2- Knowledge

Obviously, the empathic leader must be a specialist within the field of action in which it develops. Leadership must be justified by a broad capacity and knowledge of the activities to be carried out.

3- Justice

The empathic leader must possess a high ability to find the balance between rewarding and penalizing. It must govern its management actions through objective analysis and decision procedures, and insert reasoning in its activity.

4- Motivation

The empathic leader must be able to transmit energy to the work team. Nobody can present greater motivation and conviction in the tasks to be carried out than him.

You must adopt the position of guide and get all individuals to follow you through the firm belief and motivation that the leader presents about the activities to be undertaken.

5- Decision making

The empathic leader must develop a method and a reliable strategy that allows him to decide on the best alternatives. You must guide your performance through congruent processes and not transmit instability or variance in your leadership.

6- Service

For the members of the group to be at the service of the leader, this must also be for the others. The empathic leader works together with others and shows solidarity with colleagues.

7- Advice

The empathic leader doesn't just command or direct. He also advises and supports each of his colleagues. It respects the autonomy and capacity for initiative of the members of the group and offers them support just when they need it.

8- Values

Finally, the empathic leader must encourage the observation of institutional and individual values. You should do it in a practical way and set an example to others about the values ​​that should be developed within the group.

Empathic leadership model

The empathic leadership model implies the development of a planning system that allows coordinating and integrating all other administrative and human systems.

The main goal of empathic management is creativity. Since in this way it is possible to obtain added value in the activities carried out. Likewise, for the leadership model to be fruitful, it must be inserted in an institutional framework duly delineated by the organization's senior management.

The leadership process must integrate within its strategies very specific goals for each of the fields of action. And its operation must be closely related to human and ecological principles.

The main areas of the empathic leadership model are: energy, projection, quality, creativity, innovation and research. These must work through the planning system and must be able to feed back each other at all times.

Empathic leadership in organizations

Empathic leadership forms the foundation from which any organization must build. Specifically, this type of group management supports the two fundamental structural pillars: the individual and the organization.

In this way, empathic leadership forms a bridge of human resources that ensures that both pillars are fully unified and share objectives.

The bridge that makes up empathic leadership is characterized by the processes of communication, integration, motivation, training, conflict management and decision-making.

The final goal that is achieved through this type of leadership is organizational empathy. That is, the capacity of an organization to satisfy the needs of its work groups for the development of its activities.

Achieving these objectives leads to an optimal functioning of the group, an increase in productivity and the achievement of excellence in the services and processes developed.

References

1. Velazquez Valadez Guillermo. Empathic Leadership «A leadership model for Mexican Organizations». Journal of the Research Center. La Salle University, vol. 6, no. 23, January-June, 2005, pp. 81-100.
2. Dubrin J. Andrew, Leadership: Easy Series, Pearson, Mexico, 1999.
3. Drucker, Peter. The post-capitalist society, Ed. Norma, Colombia, 1994.
4. Llanos Cifuentes Carlos, Humility and leadership, Ediciones Ruz, México, 2004.
5. Rodríguez Estrada Mauro, Human Relations: comprehensive training series Vol. 2, Modern Manual, Mexico, 1985.
6. Rodríguez Estrada, Mauro. "Integration of Teams" (comprehensive training, Vol. 3), Modern Manual, Mexico, 1985.