Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash
Picture this. You recently promoted a team member for their hard work. Outside of seniority, your recently promoted member, let’s call this person Sal, has worked hard to accomplish a great quantity of projects. Recently, one of Sal’s direct reports put in their notice. The report has had trouble for over a year, struggling with personal challenges, something you’ve been very understanding about.
In your effort to be innovative, you dream up a solution: By offering Sal’s subordinate flexibility to continue to work, albeit not full-time, you allow space for a person who is personally struggling. Your team is performing well and you’ve invested significant time into your team’s camaraderie.
We often wish organizations would be creative about the “human element.” People are complicated: there must be some allowances. Typically these allowances are measured in policy to ensure folks don’t take advantage. I’m all for standards and policies, but I’m also a strong advocate for innovation. If a company can retain a team member, even if the role and scope look a little different than what they were doing previously, that’s a win for everyone.
While I could focus on the monumental win here of problem-solving when dealing with personnel issues, I actually want to go back to Sal.
Sal’s response to this solution was dismal, at best. When approached with the idea to offer this arrangement to the team member, you are met with disbelief. “What will other people think?” “I had a hard year too.” The general tone is negative.
You decide to proceed, as you feel it reflects the values of the team as a whole, but are troubled by Sal’s self-focused response. What do you do?
It’s apparent there’s an empathy gap. Everyone has their own “stuff.” And only we know what we go through. But when anyone is put into a managerial position, the truth is empathy must increase. You must try to put on their glasses and see the world through a different lens. If Sal’s boss also looked at Sal and any direct report without empathy, there’s no way the aforementioned solution would have been dreamt up. So how can we increase empathy, one of the most important attributes for a leader? Stay tuned, as I’ll provide suggestions for you and your team in my next post.