Pairing and Expanding Your Strengths: Empathy

On this Theme Thursday Season 2 webcast, Jim Collison, Gallup's Director of Talent Sourcing, and Maika Leibbrandt, Gallup Advanced Learning and Development Consultant, discussed the theme of Empathy.

People talented in the Empathy theme can sense other people's feelings by imagining themselves in others' lives and circumstances. Simply put, Empathy is feeling with other people. Empathy has a sixth sense of how other people feel and it can perceive and understand complex emotions. Empathy is not a cerebral understanding of others' emotions, but rather a gut level relationship to other's emotions. People with strong Empathy can build and form relationships that have great emotional depth. Others seek them out and feel emotionally connected to them. Compassion is one of the four pillars of being an effective leader -- and people with Empathy have a head start on being an excellent leader in this way.

Raw Empathy is a state of being and mature Empathy is a start. Raw Empathy says, "I'm with you in this moment," while mature Empathy knows that, "Because I'm with you, we can go somewhere with this emotion." Raw Empathy is absorbing and mature Empathy is expressing. People wiht high Empathy are feeling the emotions of others, but they need to go beyond that and release the emotion by expressing it. This also gives voice to toher people's feelings. Raw Empathy owns the emotion, while mature Empathy is empowered by other's emotions. Raw Empathy says, "I follow the feelings of others." Mature Empathy says, "I lead by knowing the feelings of others."

To learn more about Empathy, watch the full video or listen to the audio above.