Compassion Trumps Empathy for Bosses
Too much empathy and not enough compassion is a bad thing, says a new leadership report by Potential Project, leadership trainers who鈥檝e worked with IKEA and Unilever to name only a few.
Its research concluded that too much empathy 鈥� identifying with your team鈥檚 problems 鈥� can lead to introspection and wallowing, while applying compassion by actually helping out where appropriate is a more proactive and productive way to lead.聽
鈥淓mpathy and compassion are very different,鈥� says Potential Project鈥檚 Nick Hobson, 鈥淭hey are represented in different areas of the brain. With empathy, we join the suffering of others who suffer, but stop short of actually helping. With compassion, we take a step away from the emotion of empathy and ask ourselves 鈥楬ow can we help?鈥�. For leaders, recognising the differences between empathy and compassion is critical for inspiring and managing others effectively.鈥�
Read the full article on Forbes
You can also read our blog post on ‘Leading with Feeling’ here.