In this episode, Michelle dives into the critical role of empathy within the framework of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). She highlights the shift from traditional workplace norms that once favored emotional detachment towards a more empathetic and emotionally intelligent approach. Michelle discusses how empathy serves as a fundamental pillar for creating a psychologically safe and inclusive work environment. By understanding and sharing the feelings, experiences, and perspectives of others, leaders can foster trust and a strong sense of belonging among employees.

Michelle also outlines the different types of empathy: behavioral, cognitive, and emotional, emphasizing how each can be effectively utilized in the workplace. She also discusses attributes that enhance empathy, such as authenticity, emotional resilience, curiosity, optimism, and flexibility. She also offers practical advice on channeling empathy into actionable allyship, reinforcing that embracing empathy is not just a soft skill but a strategic approach for driving meaningful DEI outcomes.

To find out more or connect with Michelle, visit: https://Equity-at-work.com

Key Topics Discussed:

• Importance of empathy in DEI
• Definition and elements of empathy
• Difference between empathy and sympathy
• Types of empathy: behavioral, cognitive, and emotional
• Attributes that enhance empathy: authenticity, resilience, curiosity, optimism, and flexibility
• Role of empathy in building psychological safety
• Practical steps to demonstrate and apply empathy
• Connection between empathy and allyship
• Encouraging leaders to embrace empathy for DEI success

I'm Michelle Bogan, founder and CEO of Equity at Work, and this is your DEI Minute, your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization, all in 15 minutes or less. Welcome back. Today, we're gonna talk about something that really a lot of today's leaders find themselves struggling with, which is how do I show empathy in the workplace? And empathy is such a core part of DEI work, especially to be something that needs to be exhibited across leaders, in particular because it helps to create a lot of the psychological safety that we've been talking about that really feeds into, you know, establishing a great foundation for DEI. But we find with our clients that what people struggle with here is a lot of us were, you know, particularly if we're boomers or we're gen xers, even older millennials, we weren't kind of raised within the workplace to show a lot of feelings. We were kind of told either directly or just through example that you're supposed to sort of check your personal stuff at the door, leave the feelings aside, just come in be focused on being really productive, really efficient, knocking out of the park with your job. And if you're a people manager, certainly having some sensitivity to the needs of your people, but not quite going as deep as what really is expected today. Now, of course, there's a much bigger focus on EQ, and empathy is a really big part of that.

So we wanted to be sure and spend at least one episode talking about how empathy feeds into DI and ways that you can really hone that skill. So just starting purely with the definition, empathy really is the ability to understand and share the feelings and experiences and perspectives of another person. So somebody who's really good at showing empathy is a really good active listener and demonstrates listening through validation, playing back what they've heard, allowing space and, you know, and quiet moments for other people to have an opportunity to talk. People are good at showing empathy also just sort of naturally or kind of innately tend to pick up on how others are feeling through body language or other signals or tone of voice or eye contact, other things that can be good indicators of how someone's feeling and how comfortable they are in a particular situation or just how they're feeling in general. And another thing that, you know, a lot of people are good at showing empathy or tend to be people that we like to go to for advice because we feel like they can take our perspective. They can see things through another person's situation and provide advice that isn't just directed based on their exact experience. But, you know extending that out into what someone else what they think someone else might be feeling, and they tend to be good at asking questions to help guide them and giving that advice in a really effective way. As I mentioned before, empathy is really foundational to building a strong culture for diversity, equity, inclusion work to thrive.

And this is because empathy and demonstrating empathy, and I'm going to talk about a couple different ways to do that in a minute, is a great thing to deploy to help build trust. And the trust is really what comes from that validation, that acknowledgment that we don't all have the same experience, we don't all bring the same perspective, but, you know, each of us brings sort of a a unique voice and experience and perspective, and and through that suggestions and ideas for opportunities and just viewpoints on different things happening around us. All of which, you know, when that's harnessed, creates an amazing rich culture and and really amazing engaged environment. But, again, empathy is coming back to helping people feel seen and heard and valued for who they are. So very, very foundational DEI, particularly the inclusion component of DEI. To be successful in empathizing, you need to do a few things. 1, like we talked about earlier, you need to be able to take another person's perspective, see things from a different point of view. The second, which and this has been very well researched, and Brene Brown actually has a terrific short, video about this where she does cite some other research in this space.

The second piece is to state of judgment when you're doing that. So if you're looking at from someone else's perspective, but you're being very judgmental as part of that process, you're not really taking another person's perspective. You're kind of applying yours on top of it because you're you're judging them for having that perspective. The third piece is to recognize the different feelings, dynamics, and emotions that are at play in that interaction. And and the 4th thing is to make sure, like I mentioned earlier, that you're validating. You're reflecting the other person's feelings back to them. You're demonstrating that you heard them. You're finding a way to communicate back to them in your emotions, your language, etcetera, that you did hear them so that they, you know, they really feel recognized and that you've got that sort of confirmation that's happening.

Where some people get tripped up is they confuse empathy and sympathy with each other, and they are related, but they are different in that empathy is very much about putting yourself in someone else's shoes, whereas sympathy is about feeling typically sadness or pity or some other emotion similar to that on another person's behalf, and that tends to be very othering. It kind of distances you from what that person is feeling. You're kind you're sort of stretching yourself a little bit into where they're they're experiencing their feeling, but it's not truly empathizing. It's really feeling sorry for them as opposed to understanding what they must be going through and seeing something from their eyes or through their eyes. And, Catalyst for if anyone's not aware of what Catalyst is, Catalyst is a think tank and, also provides services and great research on a variety of things to help drive equality in the workplace. They have a series on empathy. And in their research, they've identified 3 different types of empathy. There probably are additional ones, but I wanna make sure to reference the 3 that they talk about here because I do think this can be really helpful to help break down empathy even more.

One is behavioral empathy. So if you're someone who is all about action, when you hear about someone else's situation or you put yourself in someone else's shoes, you're very driven toward or oriented toward behavioral empathy. So you demonstrate your empathy for others. You engage in active listening. You maybe organize a GoFundMe campaign or a or a canned food drive or backpack drive or, you know, other things that are very much like calls to action to demonstrate that you've you understand how someone else is feeling and you want to be helpful in in alleviating any kind of negative experience they're happening. The second one is cognitive empathy, which is really that you you're taking on someone else's perspective. You're able to put yourself kind of intellectually in someone else's shoes and and understand from an intellectual perspective what their experience is. So playing back, you know, how someone else might be thinking about something and feeling about something very much goes in line with this sort of cognitive empathy.

And then the third one they talk about is emotional empathy. So you're very much a feeler, and this is one word that I certainly fall into. You show your colleagues that you feel what they're feeling, and you might be someone who, if the other person was comfortable with it, that you might wanna hug them or put your arm around them, or you might cry with them or, in good times laugh with them, you know, but you're kind of sharing that emotional feeling that they're going through. The other thing related to understanding there are different kinds of empathy, different ways to show empathy is also to recognize that how you might be most comfortable demonstrating empathy for someone else may not really be the thing the way they want to experience empathy or the way they feel most comfortable receiving that empathy. When we're in person with clients, a lot of times, we'll we'll print out these different kinds of empathy and scatter them around the room, and we ask people to go to one part of the room the part of the room with the empathy the type of empathy that they must identify as how they want to show empathy to someone else. And we, you know, talk about what that means as we go around the room, and then we ask people to then step back and then choose the kind of empathy, the style of empathy that reflects how they like to experience from someone else. So if someone's showing empathy to them, how do they want to experience that? And oftentimes, those things are different. And if you're with someone and you're wanting to demonstrate to them that you feel what they're feeling, you hear what they're saying, you can you're trying very hard to see their perspective or understand where they're coming from, and you don't know how to show that, or you're kind of it's really hard to read with that other person what's gonna be most affected, absolutely ask.

You know, how can I support you? That's one of the greatest things that my colleague, Jamie Applegate, does is he constantly is asking people, is there anything I can do to support you better? And I think it's such a great way to extend empathy to someone else and also open the door for them to say, you know, like, what I really need is, you know, fill in the blank. I need I kind of need a hug right now. I need to take 5 minutes. Could you cover for me? I need to organize something for somebody. Could you help me do that? Opening the door for that really does help get the ball rolling. And and also, it lets the other person sort of engage with you. And then you're, you know, you're kind of creating a little bit of a partnership in in tackling whatever the issue is at hand, which is really nice. In terms of, you know, some other ways that empathy fits in with DEI or kind of sets the stage for DEI is it certainly helps to create a a sense of belonging.

If you're demonstrating empathy in front of a group, you're certainly role modeling that behavior for others, which is terrific, and that can be really important if you're trying to help people understand perspectives across a very diverse set of employees, or even customers and community members. Empathy also, you know, by really tapping into that is a great way to help you understand what needs to be happening to create a really equitable work environment. And it certainly goes a long way in building trust and connections, so everybody feels included. There are some attributes that can help you, you know, when you focus on these attributes that can really help you build your empathy skill set, that empathy muscle. One of them is authenticity. And, you know, we hear about authenticity and being vulnerable, being, like, deeply honest, having humility. All of those go very much hand in hand and enable you to have empathy because you're saying, you know, I'm showing up as a real person, not sort of a robotic, you know, manager or someone who checks my feelings at the door. And so, I expect everyone to check their feelings too.

But demonstrating, you know, like, we we all have our our own baggage and things that we're all struggling with in life, and sometimes those do come into the workplace, and we need to find ways to support each other and and help each other through those times. Another important attribute is emotional resilience. So being composed, not taking things too personally or too seriously, just having a willingness to kind of roll with different things as they come towards you. You know, as as any seasoned manager or leader knows, you know, you can't predict what your workplace is gonna be like every day. You can't predict what your employees are gonna need day to day. And so just being set up to handle, you know, whatever is gonna come your way and and know that you're gonna, like, have the confidence that you're gonna rise with the tide and and guide your people through it, but that you're able to, you know, have that resilience through uncertain times is really important. Another one that I and this, I think, is probably my favorite one is is demonstrating curiosity and inquisitiveness. And that goes hand in hand with, you know, the skill of active listening.

I think anyone who's a naturally curious person, particularly curious about people and other cultures, other experiences, other perspectives, they tend to be great at empathizing. So if you're struggling with this just but you're really good at asking questions or you've got a lot of curiosity about lots of different things, that's something you can channel into this specifically to help build this empathy muscle. The 4th one is optimism. And to me, that is a lot of what drives resilience is, you know, if you can try to be a glass half full kind of person, but looking at challenges as opportunities, not as, you know, major, insurpassable roadblocks or failures, is really important. And also just through that helping people understand, like, we're going to find a way to find common ground, even if we were coming at things with very different perspectives, opinions, and experiences. And then the final one I'll mention is flexibility. And and that goes with, again, resilience and a bit with the curiosity of, you know, just knowing that you may get an answer to a question that you weren't anticipating or maybe weren't ready for, and being able to adapt given the feedback that you're given and and tolerate any ambiguity in the space as you work through that. Additionally, empathy really helps to create psychological safety, and we've mentioned psychological safety in several other episodes now.

It's one of the core culture requirements for your DEI work to really flourish and and be sustainable long term. Psychological safety is all about creating a safe space for people where they feel like they won't be reprimanded or there won't be retribution for, you know, asking questions or bringing new ideas to the table or even challenging, you know, an established norm or assumption. Amy Edmondson is the researcher who really identified this term and applied it to the workplace, and empathy is is very correlated to creating psychological safety as well. One excellent way to put empathy into action is through focusing on allyship. And allyship is another buzzword that is, very deeply intertwined with DEI. And and really what allyship is about is that you're leveraging something that you have that gives you more of a voice, or some political capital, or social standing, or even seniority in your organization to support and lift others up. And this that's really what helps everybody do their best work in the workplace, is that we're we're all there for each other. We're in it together.

Again, those are aspects of of psychological safety and some of the core culture requirements. But when you empathize with someone and you're trying to figure out what do I do with this feeling I have and this information I've learned, a great next step is to ask, how can I support you, and are there things I can do to be an ally for you? And being an ally can be as simple as showing up with someone. It can be, raising your voice on their behalf in a space that they're not in. If it's a meeting or with a client or, you know, or as you're talking about, you know, someone who's up for promotion or a review, that's a great way to be an ally. There are lots of different ways to be allies, and we will have an another episode that's focused just on that, but that is a terrific way to put empathy into action. So being an upstander is another way to be an ally, sort of stepping up for someone, saying something when you see that someone else is struggling and and they're not able to have a strong enough voice on their own. Partnering and problem solving, validating challenges, calling up their behavior. All of those things go hand in hand with, you know, taking that information that you get from empathizing and and pulling that into action or, you know, different things to do to really help people feel seen, heard, and valued as they're showing up at work.

And the last thing I'll mention is, you know, this can be tough. You know, as I mentioned in the beginning, for some of us who grew up within the workplace being told to check things at the door, but lean into this. This is a really, really core skill that will help you be successful in not just participating in DI work, but in particular if you are in a people leader role or a senior leader role and you need to be living out those diversity, equity, and inclusion principles that you've defined for your organization, empathy is a really, really terrific way to do it in a way that will directly impact so many people in your organization. So that's a wrap for today. I hope you found this helpful. And that's a wrap. I'm Michelle Bogan, and that's your DEI minute for today. Thank you so much for listening.

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