Why empathy has become a vital leadership competency in challenging times

Two years of the pandemic have brought about a serious rethink in the way we manage our lives and our businesses. Today, empathy, kindness, understanding, and nurturing – long considered soft skills and a prerogative of women – are being considered strategic business skills. They have become key factors in increasing employee motivation as well as business bottom lines.

In these challenging times, we’ve had organisations that have been very empathetic and very understanding of their employees’ requirements of how they can be kept motivated and how their productivity levels could be kept high. So, how did this major change happen? How specifically are Indian businesses becoming more empathetic during these very challenging times. The panel discussion on ‘How are women leaders bringing more empathy at the workplace’ focussed on the growing importance of ‘empathy’ in the pandemic times, at the 3rd edition of Adgully’s Women Disruptors 2022.

Moderated by Shanta Saikia, Editor-In-Chief, Adgully, the esteemed panellists included: Anita Kotwani, Chief Executive Officer, Carat India; Saumya Singh Rathore, Co-Founder, WinZO; Shweta Berry, Director Marketing & Head of Strategic Alliances Industry & Academia, Marcom, Sales Enablement and CSR Divisions; Siddha Jain, Chief Business Officer, Bombay Shaving Company; Suman Varma, Chief Marketing Officer, Hamdard; and Vanda Ferrao, Head of Marketing, Fresh to Home.

Anita Kotwani regared empathy as essentially a vital leadership competency. She said, “As leaders, we need to be really more person-focused in the context of the workplace. What does that mean? It means that you establish yourself as true with empathic connections with each of your employees, not only to enhance relationships but also their performances.”

Shweta Berry added here, “We all are coming from our own value systems. When we join an organisation, no matter at what level, we have our own value system and we have a different cultural perspective that we bring with us, whether it's at a subconscious level or at a very conscious level.”

When asked to share her personal experience, Siddha Jain said, “In my opinion, empathy, in general, is not an outcome-based function. It is just an input function, where you are not doing empathy to get something. It is that COVID has exacerbated what lack of empathy looks like, but empathy has an important mandate and being part of a thriving work environment is unquestionable.”

Saumya Singh Rathore here emphasised that empathy is not linked to gender and that the onus of instilling empathy in the company culture falls on every single person, regardless of gender.

Commenting on empathy in today’s business scenario, Suman Varma said, “Empathy as a skill is not something that just belongs to a woman; it’s not a skill that just needs to reside with women. I have been fortunate enough to have worked with both male and female bosses, and they have proved what empathetic leaders can bring to the table. So, I think that leading with empathy is absolutely fantastic for any organisation and for the people it serves, primarily because I think empathetic leaders have a genuine curiosity about the lives of the people they work with, whether it is at a professional level or at a personal level, and therefore, resolving conflict and being able to build a very productive team comes naturally.”

Vanda Ferrao, too, considered empathy to be a very important topic, and added that it is an underrated leadership competence, especially in start-ups. “It goes without saying that both men and women should have an equal measure of it, but I think the need to be and to display empathy during the pandemic has become very critical. I think it’s the ability to understand. This is extremely important for a start-up.”

These are edited excerpts, for the complete discussion, watch below:

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