Leadership and Empathy

We often expect others to be just like us. It’s a weirdly human phenomenon that we everyone feels like we feel. So, for example, you may feel that most people have similar opinions to you or draw the same conclusions from social cues as you.

There are a few names for this. Some call it the projection bias –because we are projecting our own ideas, opinions, emotions or beliefs onto other people.

It’s also been described as the egocentric bias. But for our purposes, they amount to roughly the same thing.

It’s always a potential pitfall in organizations because it can deepen the likelihood of groupthink. After all, if everyone agrees with your idea, it seems self-evident that it’s a great idea. We rarely even notice our own background assumptions no less interrogate their accuracy. It takes a deliberate effort to interrupt groupthink.

But, what does the projection bias mean in a remote work environment or in conversations generally—especially as leaders? How does a leader’s tendency to assume that everyone shares her own emotional state affect her leadership and her team?

Human Variability

I have a wide variety of leaders as clients, and they are all experiencing remote work and the current economic headwinds differently. For most of my clients, they already worked remotely to some extent. But having either given up their offices entirely during the pandemic --or hired many more employees from far-flung locations -- the situation has become much more remote.

Now, as the macroeconomic changes are casting a pessimistic pall on the startup universe, they are all facing it in their own ways. It isn't just a conceptual concern. Many of my clients are struggling to raise their next round of funding and having to make very hard choices. One client has been told to cut his burn rate (spending) by over 30%.

Employees are aware of these conditions and some are wondering if their jobs are in danger.

While the pandemic brought a ton of anxiety with it, once vaccines were available, that diminished. Until about November of 2022, things were pretty good. My clients were largely struggling to hire all the people they needed. Growth was on an upward trajectory and big plans were afoot.

Now, instead of excitement, anxiety is subtly coloring everyone's day-to-day experience again.

I have clients who are full of trepidation –worrying about their teams, their businesses, and their futures. Others are mentally compartmentalized, and while contending with the shifting economic conditions, are conducting business as usual.

The middle ground is peppered with variations and distinctions. Bottom line? No one feels like anyone else.

In working not just with the CEO or CTO, but also with entire management teams, I’ve seen that the variation in experience is not just between top leaders, but also between the individuals within organizations. Every single person in each organization has a completely unique and idiosyncratic experience of the current situation. Contributing to that is that they all have all have starkly different real circumstances. Some had lucrative previous exits and aren't concerned about financial hardship. Others are perpetually worried they will end up on the bread line.

The way that we normally deal with this kind of variation is by trying to imagine how we would feel “in their shoes”. In psychology jargon, that’s called stock taking.

Research suggests it doesn’t work. In fact, a 2018 study found that stock taking was remarkably ineffective at generating accurate predictions of how other people felt.

Here’s the most ironic part: In yet a different study it emerged that when we actively attempt to take stock and imagine how someone else feels, we become more confident in our accuracy. But, ironically, the more confident the subjects were about what they predicted, the less accurate they were! Moreover, those who were least confident turned out to be the most accurate.

Confidence and accuracy were inversely related. (I have to admit that the finding reminded me of the Dunning Kruger effect).

Only one thing really increased the accuracy in predicting other people’s experience: conversation. 

In some ways this seems obvious. We learn about other people through conversation. It’s not monosyllabic exchanges or yes-no questions that give us in-depth information, as any decent journalism student will attest. It is open ended questioning and probing that produces a clear narrative. Those open ended, specific questions lead to conversations in which context, detail, texture and background emerge. And with that, we gain real understanding of how things are for someone else.

Remote Teams and Conversation

The great loss of remote work is that of low-stakes, personal interactions. We don't ride elevators or have lunch with our colleagues. As a result, we rarely talk about non-work stuff. Ultimately, the formality of remote work has curtailed much of the intimacy of being peers. And from the standpoint of leaders, it leaves a vacuum where personal empathy used to reside. [click to tweet this thought.]

As a leader--at any level--you have to explicitly build opportunities to converse with your team. That means informal, non-work “shooting the sh*t.” Go out of your way to have casual conversations. Pick up the phone and call a team member and ask how they're doing. What did they get up to over the weekend? How's the wedding planning coming? Is the new baby sleeping through the night yet?

It's especially important during hard times.

If you team is internalizing the anxiety of the marketplace --or your anxiety about the fundraising issues -- it will affect their work. It will affect their sleep --and their creativity. Even looking only at the cold, measurable impact, those reductions in being present, rested, energetic and content all lead to sub-optimal work.

But, by bridging the gaps in proximity with conversations that build understanding and empathy, you can make a huge difference. So, whether you're a CEO, CTO, or a new manager on a small product team --set aside time specifically for getting to know your team. It will be one of the most valuable things you can do for their performance. And perhaps more importantly, it will be one of the most enriching things you can do for yourself.

Become an even more extraordinary leader, and develop a team that will stand on your shoulders in the future. Schedule a call with me to talk about executive Coaching-as-a-Service. Give your team the development tool that will benefit your organization and their futures.