Empathy is one of those “soft skills” that you can’t quantify and doesn’t seem to fit on a resume. However, leveraging my ability to understand people, not only things, is one of my most valuable skills and it has enabled me to rise into leadership without a college degree or always having the deep technical skills you might expect of a software development leader.
Here is why.
To lead someone you must understand them, to understand them you must care about them, to care about them you must empathize with them.
If you can’t empathize with those you lead, you will treat them all the same out of a sense of fairness, but people are not the same and they shouldn’t be treated as if they are, to treat everyone the same is not fair.
Empathizing with others keeps you balanced as a leader. You won’t micro-manage because it’s easy to see that they don’t want someone standing over their shoulder controlling everything they do. You also won’t be aloof, understanding that everyone needs some direction from their leader.
Empathy is integral to what’s called “Dynamic Leadership” and will allow you to see how much direction each individual needs. Someone who is new will need a lot. Someone with experience will need little and will chaff at micromanagement.
When you can strike this balance as a leader, and they see that you understand them, your team will excel and respect you for the freedom and leadership that you offer.
Empathy will allow you to see when someone on your team is burning out from overwork, or maybe they are working on a project that doesn’t fit their skills, or maybe they aren’t getting along with someone else on the team. These are the kinds of situations, that left unchecked, can destroy an otherwise great team member. If you can’t recognize these problems through empathy, your team will become a revolving door like my first team.
Empathetic leadership will set you apart in the world of software development. Engineer personality types are used to NOT being understood by their bosses, so when they recognize that you see them, or at least that you are trying, they will follow you over someone who “just doesn’t get them”.