“Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else’s position and feeling what they are feeling.” (Kendra Cherry)
Empathy is what enables you to connect with and relate to the feelings, viewpoints, perspectives, and interests of others, and thereby become effective in creating cooperative and shared understandings that can lead to mutually satisfying outcomes.
For example, by being empathetic in public speaking, a speaker can relate meaningfully with the opinions and perspectives of those in his or her audience, can gain and maintain their interest, and transmit ideas in a way that connects with and is useful to what they care about.
To effectively connect with others, it is not enough to have something interesting or useful to say. You must also be able to relate meaningfully to those whom you are talking, and in order to accomplish that you will need to become skilled in the use of empathy. If you don’t, all your talk may just end up falling on disinterested and deaf ears.
“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own. ” (Henry Ford)
“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives ” (Oprah Winfrey)
Getting Personal
From your own experience, what is a good example of when someone was trying to communicate to you, but they appeared to be lacking in empathy and didn’t seem to understand your feelings, opinions, and perspective?
How did their lack of empathy make you feel?
….Top of page image, Giving a speech, from dreamstime.com
