I had a great conversation this morning with someone whose coaching I am supervising. It went something like this…
“I have a client who has a really hard time connecting with his boss. He feels like he listens to the questions the boss has, but that when he answers the question he doesn’t even get to the end of the answer before the boss interrupts with another question. Scott, I feel like I might be coaching the wrong person. I think the boss might need the coaching.”
While this might be true, the boss might need some coaching on being patient and listening, what I coached my supervisee around is that we really can’t do anything about the other person (in this case the boss). Our job as coaches is not to try and control everything in the equation. And certainly not to allow our clients to manipulate the situation by blaming others as a reason they can not develop. If the boss indeed is a bad listener, this does not have anything to do with the fact that the client we have in front of us still has work to do in learning to be more empathetic.
Said another way, the bosses poor behavior is no excuse for our client refusing to look at themselves to learn and grow.
3 Types of Empathy
A typical definition for the emotional skill of empathy that I use in my work in emotional intelligence is "recognizing, understanding, and appreciating how other people feel Empathy involves being able to articulate your understanding of another’s perspective and behaving in a way that respects others’ feelings.”
This type of empathy is known in the literature as Empathetic Concern. There is a prosocial orientation with a leaning toward a compassionate behavior with others. The idea behind Empathetic Concern has concern for the thoughts and feelings of the other person while being able to articulate the other person’s perspective. There is no mandate to agree with the perspective, but the goal is understanding where they are coming from.
Empathetic Concern is very different from two other types of empathy that have been discussed in the literature; Empathetic Distress and Empathetic Perspective. Empathetic Distress is characterized by a reactive and negative feeling that are focused on the self and reactions to others. It often manifests itself as anxiety, worry, doubt, and discomfort. The concern in this type of empathy is more recognition of the other persons state of being while being focused on how it will affect the self (you/me). Empathetic Distress is self-referential concern. It is hearing that Joe just got laid off and being worried about how this will affect your workload, or even whether you are next! It has nothing to do with how the layoff is affecting Joe in the moment.
Empathetic Perspective is more about trying to cognitively connect with what the other person is experiencing. It is often seen as intellectualizing the other persons situation and trying to rationalize the experience. “Joe will be just fine. He is a talented guy. He got a nice severance. He will be working again in a month. He can actually enjoy some time off and connect with his family, something he has talked a lot about.” What always goes along with Empathetic Perspective taking is some sense of moral judgment. The person trying to do the empathizing becomes both judge and jury about the circumstance and Joe is never even called as a witness to see how he feels about being laid off.
Back to the Story
With the context of these three types of empathy in mind, I want to return to my coaching supervisee. I challenged the young coach to go back to the client to try and discern which of the 3 types of empathy the person was actually using.
The young coach interrupted me, “I don’t have to go back, I already think I know.” I let them convince me they were being empathetic because they were tying to intellectualize the bosses behavior rather than digging into what the boss actually meant with the initial question. The young coach continued, “ I need to coach my client on digging into not what they heard the boss ask for, but instead strive to understand what the bosses intention is for asking the question. I feel like the work I have to do is to move my client from Empathetic Perspective to Empathetic Concern.”
“How might you do that?” I asked.
“The first thing I can think of is rather than my client responding to and answering the bosses question, would be to take a deep breath, be patient, then ask the boss, to say more about the initial question.”
My work as the coaching supervisor was done. The young coach had articulated for themselves the development need and has all the tools to really help the client grow.
Personal Application
This has been a really tough week for me personally. My wife has not felt well this week and we have had to make some trips (actually every day this week) to the doctor’s office.
When I get in what I call “driver” or problem-solver mode, I can feel myself shifting from Empathetic Concern to Empathetic Perspective. I can cognate what is going on in my wife’s body without expressing concern and compassion for what she Is experiencing. I don’t see myself as a tyrant, but I do need to become more aware to show more Empathetic Concern in the moment.
How about you? Where do you fall on the spectrum of Empathetic Distress to Empathetic Perspective to Empathetic Concern?
I am sure it is contextual for you, as it is for me. The growth for all of us is likely to recognize those situations where you are not showing the Concern that other people deserve.