As we are starting into the new year, for many teams all over the world, working from home will continue to be the default. As a leader of a virtual team, you might be thinking of your calendar that is already filled with virtual meetings. Or about the strenuous communication over e-mail and Co. Or how difficult it can be to lead virtually, sitting behind a screen at home, instead of meeting your team in the office.
Attending to every single team member’s needs on top of all other responsibilities that you have? Especially in times of non-stop Zoom meetings and physical distance to your team, this might seem like an impossible goal to achieve. After all, communicating empathy through a screen is not an easy task, especially when time is scarce.
The thing is, the most effective virtual leaders are those who show a lot of empathy to their teams. The good news is, we have summarized why empathy is worth the effort and suggest 3 Quick Ways to showing empathy as a virtual leader.
What is Empathy?
Empathy means understanding another person’s (emotional) experiences. It also means providing emotional support to them and a feeling of security. Most of us show empathy daily to our family members and our friends. We show empathy when we actively listen to them. When we show understanding for what they are currently experiencing. And when we express our unconditional support.
From an evolutionary point of view, empathy is an adaptive skill, that can help us identify who to trust – and who not to trust. To this day, showing and receiving empathy makes us feel better and close to others in our private life. What we know now is that empathy is also important in the workplace. Here’s why and how to prioritize empathy when leading virtually.
Leading with empathy is more than coordinating activities, managing people and meeting deadlines successfully. Empathetic leaders go the extra mile: they also focus on their emotional relationship with team members and understand their unique needs and situations. Moreover, empathetic leaders invest in displaying genuine understanding and providing emotional support. This makes team members feel secure.
Going the extra mile is not always easy. It requires attention and individual consideration of each and every team member. This translates into time and energy, that most virtual leaders have very little of. Here’s why it is still worth it.
Why Should You Should Lead with Empathy?
It improves relationships and performance
Showing empathy to your team members will transform not only your relationship with them. It will transform their work performance. When people feel that their leader cares about their emotional well-being at work, they feel more secure, are more satisfied with their job, and experience positive emotions at work. This is great for their well-being. But it goes further.
We live in a world where individual and team performance increasingly relies on cognitive expenditure and emotional work. Therefore, this emotional support by leaders, can empower team members to be more innovative at work, more motivated, and putting more effort into their work.
Leaders showing that they care about their team’s well-being is 3 times more effective in improving work performance than structuring and monitoring tasks.
It prevents poor performance
Empathy can also help you as a virtual leader to prevent poor performance in your team. Understanding what each team member’s needs are, means knowing how to best manage different team members. For example, taking your team members’ work situation and needs into account, allows you to provide them more appropriate feedback.
This in turn improves their performance, since they now feel more confident about how they can improve their work performance, given their unique circumstances. That way, you can be a more effective virtual leader.
It is even more important in home office
Empathetic leadership is always beneficial for the well-being and performance of teams. But it is even more important now. Working remotely, especially during a pandemic, poses extra challenges to your teams and to you. Team members feel more insecure. They need to handle additional demands, such as social isolation, difficulties to adapt to working from home, and of course fear and anxiety about the future. As if that was not enough, virtual communication robs us of the possibility to chat spontaneously and informally and to naturally check in with each other and show empathy.
So, virtual leaders who can show empathy have never been more needed than now!
3 Quick Ways to Leading with Empathy
1. Take 5 minutes to ask your team members how they are doing.
At the beginning of team or individual meetings, ask every team member to share how they are doing – not related to their work tasks, but rather how they are doing generally. Are there any circumstances they want you and the other team members to be aware of? Are they experiencing an unusually difficult week working from home?
Especially when your team works remotely, actively asking your team members about their current situation and expressing your understanding for that situation is important to communicate empathy. It is also a great chance for you and the rest of the team to anticipate how everyone’s personal situation could impact short-term work outcomes. This means, you can come up with solutions before problems arise. And don’t forget to share how you are doing, too.
2. Use language that communicates empathy.
And with that, we do not mean specific words. What we mean is to praise your team members when they have done a great job, to encourage them to think out of the box, to ask them how satisfied they are with their job and what they would need to reach their potential. This shows that you trust and care about your team members, it provides them with the psychological safety that they need in order to excel.
3. Walk the talk.
Expressing understanding and validating others’ experiences is valuable. However, when words are not followed by appropriate behaviours, they quickly become worthless. A team member is struggling to work during standard hours because they have to take care of their kid who got a cold? Allow them to work at more unusual times for these few days.
Listen to your team members’ needs and concerns and try to find solutions together. That way, their needs are met without risking their and the team’s performance. By walking the talk, you show genuine empathy, which will build trust within your team – and will help performance in the long-term.
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March 17, 2023This post is based on the following academic articles:
Kock, N., Mayfield, M., Mayfield, J., De, L. G. L. M., & Sexton, S. (2019). Empathetic leadership: how leader emotional support and understanding influences follower performance. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 26(2), 217–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051818806290
Fan, K.-T., Chen, Y.-H., Wang, C.-W., & Chen, M. (2014). E-leadership effectiveness in virtual teams: motivating language perspective. Industrial Management and Data Systems, 114(3), 421–437. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-07-2013-0294
Kayworth, T., & Leidner, D. (2002). Leadership effectiveness in global virtual teams. Journal of Management Information Systems, 18(3), 7–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2002.11045697
