Empathy — A Central Quality of the Servant Leader

Continuing from our post of August 24, 2009 that focused on ten characteristics/qualities of the servant leader, the second in the list is “empathy.”

To start it’s important to make the distinction between empathy and sympathy.

Imagine someone you know is not feeling well, perhaps feeling nauseated.

In simple terms sympathy is feeling support for, offering help to, willing to do something for that person. You recognize their distress and acknowledge it.

Empathy means feeling nauseated with that person—you mentally or emotionally project your experience into the feelings or state of mind of another person.

So why would empathy versus sympathy be listed as a quality of a servant leader?

Wouldn’t you think that being sympathetic would be a more effective quality . . .

Because you would be able to stand at an emotional distance, caring but still able to see the problem, supportive by imagining and offering a solution—perhaps an antiemetic like Kaopectate.

But when you think about it, no matter how caring you may be, if you’ve never experienced nausea you can only approximate what the other person is going through.

With a physical situation like nausea, offering a beneficial solution may be relatively easy and doesn’t require your having had the experience yourself.

But what about, say, someone who’s just lost a child to an auto accident? The subtlety and depth of that experience is so shaded, so dimensional that, without having had the experience yourself, any solution you might offer would likely be off mark—and even way off the mark.

The empathetic experience is what make Alcoholics Anonymous so successful. All the members have been there, in the depth of the addiction, and truly understand each other. They are not just coming from a theoretical, bookish understanding, so that makes them trustworthy.

I’ve Been There = A Servant Leader

Judith and I began Internet marketing having been psychotherapists for 17 years. We knew nothing about marketing and sales and less about computer technology. We dove in and it was truly either sink or swim.

Why are we using our experience as an example? Because many people, for example Boomers who are looking to begin home-based businesses, and many more, largely as result of this economic downturn, are re-designing their lives out of necessity and are coming onto the Internet.

Most of them are like Judith and I used to be. They have little or no experience in the key skills that can lead to their success. When they turn to us for guidance they tell us they are so grateful that we truly understand their circumstances and we can identify, from the inside out, with where they are and what they need.

Bridging Heart and Marketing

One opportunity for us to be servant leaders is through our Bridging Heart and Marketing conferences. We provide information and training for those who are just beginning and for those who have already begin (and for some who are advanced.).

We choose our speaker/presenters from our understanding of what our attendees need.

Very often Internet marketing conference producers present teachers who are experientially aligned with those who are far along, and yet bill their conferences as appropriate for everyone. That’s not true. We know because we attended those conferences and found them to be unhelpful—and, in fact, detrimental, because these producers and presenters did not have a empathetic grasp of where we were in our marketing development.

They were sympathetic but not empathetic.

Empathy

So a real leader possesses empathy—a been there done that quality. Otherwise it’s just head-stuff. The heart and the feeling body are absent. A servant leader is living and breathing empathy and that’s what make him/her some you can trust.

What do you know—deeply know—that makes you a servant leader? That’s where your business focus should be, because those who need what you know can find you, and you can assume and live your leadership in whatever niche you have identified as a reflection of who you deeply are.

Because It’s All in the Connection,
Judith and Jim

In our upcoming Internet marketing conference, Bridging Heart and Marketing III — The VIRTUAL conference — discovering and refining what you know — deeply know — will be the focus of Lisa Cherney’s 90-minute session. She calls it “Stand Out & Be Juicy! Magnetize Your Marketing to Attract Your Ideal Clients.” It’s all about your deepest benefit, that benefit that will transform the lives of those who do business with you. And your juciest benefit emerges from the empathy you feel with your customers and clients.

Bridging Heart and Marketing is the ONLY Internet marketing conference dedicated to you— the heart-based marketer for whom empathy is an authentic quality.

And you don’t have to travel. You can join us from the comfort of your own home or office, because Bridging Heart and Marketing III is VIRTUAL.