Empathy

Empathy is the first category of social abilities and fourth of the subcategories of Goleman’s theory on emotional intelligence. Empathy is divided by Goleman into understanding others, developing others, service orientation, leveraging diversity and political awareness.

Empathy is perhaps a concept that is the easiest to connect with emotional intelligence.

All the interviewees considered empathy an important topic. It was visible through a

supervisor conforming to personal issues in an employee’s life and being able to prioritize the employee over the company’s benefits. One interviewee stated that especially in personal topics, empathy is very important, but decisions are then made fact-based. This paints a picture of the roles of emotion and reason, clearly separate and serving specific, differing needs. This is an example of how reason and emotion do not exclude one another, but a leader can simultaneously consider both and be empathetic, but still use reason in decision making.

Empathy was visible not only through realizing when and which emotions should be expressed, but also through realizing when emotions should not be expressed. However, as mentioned above, one interviewee said that they did not want to express emotions when discussing with the management as they felt it would not be wanted or w ell received. This behavior is empathy-based, where one’s difficulty in managing emotions is sensed by another, who then edits their behavior.

When asked whether the IT organization has empathetic people, one interviewee answered with percentages.

“Well if a 100% is a lot and 0 not at all, then maybe 60%, 55%?” (Mid management interviewee)

Empathy was considered a good value if it is something one has and that it is important for some that the supervisor reads the situation and helps through a situation or a conversation. A top-level manager stated that they have interviewed their own team leaders (mid-level managers) and stated that their situation is quite okay, regardless of the haste. However, one of their interviewed team leaders stated that in the weekly meetings they go through the strained workloads in their teams, but that it does not help.

“We go through the workloads in my team with my supervisor, and it’s been horror lately, but it doesn’t seem to help … it might be a bit rough, but it seems like they try to show they care when they really don’t.” (Mid management interviewee)

This mismatch in points of view rises important discussions. Pure empathy is not enough when leading, but it needs to be followed with actions. In this situation, however, there seems to be a gap in either information sharing or the use of emotional intelligence. This

can be seen through how caring, for example, is expressed and viewed and how the expressing of emotion and how it is perceived seem to differ quite significantly. As came up in the interview mentioned below, this could be due to a difference in how the employees discuss the topics with their near supervisor (mid manager) versus how they discuss the topics when a top-level manager comes and asks about how they are doing.

So, the core of the issue seems to be in either the hierarchy that is in the way of openly expressing emotions (whether from an employee to a top manager or the other way around) or the lack of communicating emotions in the first place.

“Well I know situations where I… I naturally have one-to-one meetings with everyone, some issues rise up and I maybe bring them up in my own one-to-one and then I hear afterwards that my supervisor has also talked with my team and that there’s nothing wrong. Is it then the level, when you move from manager to director, so the answers change?” (Mid management interviewee)

When asked whose responsibility is an employee’s self-development, the interviewees’

answers could be divided into three categories. Some thought that the responsibility was mostly on the supervisor to discuss with the employee on what is their aim in the long run, begin mapping the path that way and it is then the supervisor’s job to realistically analyze whether the desired path is possible in the organization and to communicate the results. Some thought the responsibility is with the employees themselves to share their own ideas and interests regarding their career paths and some that it is a shared responsibility.

“I have people on my team who are maybe studying something on the side, something else IT-related, on their free time, that I may not even know. Well if they don’t bring it out to me, I can’t understand or direct that hey there might be something very interesting for you to do there.” (Mid management interviewee)

The employees’ development was considered important and it was felt that possibilities for development should be given. One interviewee stated that they encourage development and that they are not jealous of their employees.

“… and I’m not necessarily like jealous is someone would like to do something else.

It’s ok, it’s a part of this.” (Mid management interviewee)

The lack of development paths was concerning to some. It was felt that the organization does not have a clear way to support the employees’ career path design and implementation and that the organization has not offered teams the equal possibility to partake in trainings. It was suggested to involve the HR department and to map out the employees’ career path and to give what they need to get there.

“… the best would be if HR was involved. That there would be a direct development path from seeing that this guy is wanted to be made into a leader in the future that this one might have what it takes.” (Mid management interviewee)

Empathy was considered an important topic in the working life as was reason in making decisions. The base the questionnaire formed for the organization’s empathy does not completely correspond to the answers of the interviews. Many managers took into consideration their employees’ personal lives and their possible effects to their work. It seems thus that the issue is once again communication or the hierarchy. The top managers inquire the wellbeing of employees from the mid manager, which produces possible misunderstandings with the information. Even with possibly genuine intentions, the unwillingness to discuss wellbeing directly with a top manager makes it difficult for the atmosphere to improve. Another way of improvement is the employee development, for which the responsibility could be divided into three categories: mostly on the supervisor, the employees themselves and shared responsibility. Even if the responsibilities were clear, the development paths are scarce and inequal between teams.