Is empathy part of your leadership development plan?

I was reading my newsfeed the other morning when a story about Mark Cuban caught my eye. 

He is my favorite shark on the TV show, Shark Tank, and the title really intreated me, so I clicked on the story.

The title of the article is “How Mark Cuban’s Compassion For An Ex Employee In Need Shows Remarkable Empathy And Leadership.

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Two things about the title really grabbed me:

  1. Mark Cuban and the word Compassion. I have to tell you, that really stirred me. As you read the article you find out that Mark went out of his way to help a guy who suffers from mental illness. Keep in mind, this is a guy who he had employed as a player on his Dallas Maverick’s NBA team for only one year. He probably didn’t know him all that well, yet went out of his way to intentionally help.  That is what COMPASSION is. The word actually means “with someone in their suffering.” I think we all could use a little more of that trait today.

  2. The second thing I noticed was that the editors had linked Empathy and Leadership in the title of the article. What gets linked with leadership these days when it comes to news is anything but leadership. In fact, I scrolled through the news just a few minutes ago and the only thing I saw was mean spirited vitriol that was more about furthering agendas than it was reporting the news. I guess that is what I found so refreshing about the story linking Empathy and Leadership. 

But these two things are not why I wanted to write this post. 

What really caught my eye when reading the article was this quote, from an NBA scout: :

Talent isn't the question. It comes down to whether or not he's worth the potential off-court headache. 

The player the scout is referring to is Delonte West….but that really isn’t the point.

The thing that really struck me was that talent alone is not enough. Never has been. Never will be. 

I have known and worked with a lot of people over the years that had more talent in their little pinkie than most people totally embodied and yet they just never seemed to be able to get ahead. 

  • They were disruptive in meetings

  • They seem to only care about themselves and patting themselves on the back

  • They only care about their agenda, their project

  • The task they had to accomplish was more important than the people around them

In essence, they lack what Mark Cuban, at least in this one instance, seems to really understand. 

People matter!

Compassion and empathy are leadership traits that need to be honed and developed. 

I am asking myself these days if we have put way too much emphasis on management and productivity, and not enough on caring about the people who are doing the production.

I wonder what our world would be like if we all made Empathy part of our Leadership Development plans?