Are You an Empathetic Professional?

As a professional, as a leader, even as a brand, ask yourself this critical

question: are you empathetic? Do you have the genuine ability to
understand and share the feelings of another?
More research is showing us the power of empathy, as it can be used as the
tissue that connects and deepens relationships. With empathy, you walk in
the others high heels or sneakers, feel their feelings, experience life from
their perspective. Human brains are filled with mirror neurons, which not only
react to our subjects of empathy, but also reproduce their emotions.
However, there is a dark side of pure empathy, called pain. Ongoing
neuroscientific research tells us that when we feel the stress of others, we
take on their pain.
Empathy is really important for understanding others emotions very deeply,
but there is a downside of empathy when it comes to the suffering of others,
says Olga Klimecki, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human
Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany. When we share the suffering of
others too much, our negative emotions increase. It carries the danger of an
emotional burnout.
Whereas the first question is, are you empathetic? The second one is, are you
compassionate? A recent study, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex,
suggests that we can better cope with others negative emotions by
strengthening our own skills for compassion, which the researchers define as
feeling concern for anothers suffering and desiring to enhance that
individuals welfare.
Training in compassion allowed participants who are empathetic to better
cope with despair. With more and more evidence, we see that empathy is a
gateway into the others experiences, but compassion is the arch through
which you want to do something to help the other without robbing them of
any wise life lessons.
While there is a lot of press about the power of empathy, it only takes you
half the way to the point of creativity, of wanting to craft a solution that fits
the situation. In pure empathy, due to neuroplasticity, you can get lost in the
emotions of others.
Compassion, defined as "sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or
misfortunes of others, means that you care enough to try and help.
Compassion also mitigates against the negativity, allowing our brains to
respond in a grounded, positive manner to tough news or hard feedback.
This is great news if you plan on creating or improving a product or service or
being a good leader of people, as you can tap this deep reservoir of humanity
to create something of value, something useful, and something that fills an

unmet need or sets something crooked straight. Likewise, if you are in a

management position you can earn trust by being empathetic with your
employees.
Empathy creates the bridge, and compassion points out a new path. This new
path is what meaningful innovation seeks to be in the market.