Empathy is a critical skill for leaders.  In order to have empathy, we must be able to invoke an experience within ourselves that is close to what the other person is feeling.  We must be able to be vulnerable ourselves. 

It is not about minimizing the other person’s pain but simply being able to be with it.  We need to acknowledge that we can never know what it is truly like to be another person and that we will never have all of the information in order to feel what they feel.

However, our ability to connect with another person relies on our ability to have empathy and to be vulnerable ourselves.  Empathy and vulnerability allow us to begin to be authentic at work and this is often what an employee needs to see in order to open up and share what is going on for them.

When this happens, our role is never to give advice or to tell but to simply be present and truly listen and ask questions that allow the other person to determine what they want to do next.

Many leaders believe their job is to show confidence, no matter what.  However, if we come back to the notion that everything is energy, the employee will actually feel the imbalance and know something isn’t right.  The leader’s credibility is now at stake.

When a leader can share their vulnerability, be open and honest about what they know and what they don’t know, they become human in the eyes of the employee.  When leaders share stories with employees that are relevant to the issue, where things did not go so well for the leader, it allows the employee to see the leader in a different light.  This is the beginning of an authentic trusting relationship.