This article was first published in Leadership Ed, Issue 14, Term 1, 2021 under the title, Learning to listen: the importance of empathy in leadership.
In a busy school setting, having the ability and willingness to be present and listen, to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, can be a powerful tool in meeting that person’s needs, and also, shining in your role as a leader.
It seems reasonable to conclude that there are no two days in the life of the deputy principal which are quite the same. It is probably also true that there is no single day which ends up going quite as smoothly as the plans outlined on the optimistically jotted ‘to-do’ list on your desk.
Eighteenth century Scottish poet, Robert Burns, and, perhaps more famously, author John Steinbeck, who brought the well-worn phrase to the popular audience in his classic novel Of Mice and Men, both gave voice to the certainty that nothing is certain:
But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go aft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
As senior leaders in schools, the complexity of our roles – as a result of the wide range of stakeholders with whom we connect in our work and the need to be responsive to the situations that come to our attention each day (all the while maintaining a proactive and strategic view towards the future) – makes it clear that the ability to be agile, to ‘pivot’ easily and quickly, to prioritise and re-prioritise, are essential in managing the tasks before us.
We have complex roles. We are busy. A while ago, I wrote a blog post that acknowledged the busyness we experience in schools:
“We’re all busy. Over the years, I’ve come to recognise that, as educators, we are all genuinely busy. I’ve also recognised that busy looks different for different people. Busy can’t be quantified. Busy is a state of mind. If you feel that you’re busy, you are busy. Even if your busy looks like a holiday to someone else, you are still busy. Your busy doesn’t necessarily equal my busy. Your busy doesn’t have to equal my busy in order to qualify as busy. It’s still busy.”
This term, the impact of busyness and the pressure caused by such busyness has been in keen focus for me.
Our senior leadership team ended our summer break with a two-day leadership retreat. Along with the incredibly valuable social connections that were strengthened during that time, and the opportunity we took to focus on the view of our school from the ‘balcony’ (and even from the ‘helicopter’), it was a pressure-free environment that enabled our team to bring the best of ourselves to our shared task of leading our school.
Part of our learning was enabled through the use of a tool that provides an assessment of our individual ‘thinking preferences’ and how, as a team, our differences can work together in a way that highlights how the sum of our strengths is greater than our individual parts.
A key insight for our growth as leaders during this retreat came through learning about how our ways of operating shift, for some us, when experiencing pressure.
Personally, I learnt how my natural preference for relational and future-focused thinking often shifts to a more practical and analytical approach in times of pressure. This has been something that has subsequently shown itself regularly in my day-to-day work.
It is through this lens of increased self-awareness that I have considered my communication style this year so far. As we go about our day, the rhythm of the day is constantly changing.
The urgency of one exchange can be in stark contrast to the relaxed beat and tempo of another. The way we communicate needs to adapt to the situation and to the individuals with whom we are working.
Initially, this article had been planned with a goal to outline specific strategies for the ways in which, as leaders, we can best work with different groups of stakeholders, with sections on working with parents, working with colleagues, working with students, leading other leaders, and so on.
What became apparent while working within that structure was that communication and leadership are both far more complex and far more straightforward than that, and the strategies for each were looking pretty identical!
There was one attribute which stood out as central to each of the key strategies for working with each of the groups of people connected to our schools: the need to exercise empathy. In working with others, we are often face-to-face with an irate parent, or a stressed staff member or an upset student.
We rarely get to choose the timing for this interaction, and we are rarely ‘free’ in that moment. More likely, we’ve been dropped in on whilst mid-task, working at our desk, or approached part-way across the playground en route to a scheduled meeting or a class in another part of the school.
That interaction, at that time, in that location, is unlikely to be the ideal context in which to engage meaningfully with the person, to listen to and attempt to address the real and genuine issue before you. It is potentially an inconvenient moment, in an unideal environment.
The temptation may be to hear, but not to listen, to react, but not truly respond in a way that meets the need of the person, and to move on to the next planned item on that to-do list.
There is no template for what works best in these situations. It is easy to get it wrong. We are human, and we are responding to other humans, with feelings, often at a time in which their emotions are high and their desire for a resolution to an issue is strong. Under this pressure, logic and rational thinking can easily give way to a reactive response.
It is these times when the need to understand the other person – to show empathy – is the key to meeting that person’s needs, and excelling in your role as a leader.
In the blog post on busyness mentioned earlier, I aimed to highlight the importance of understanding each other’s circumstances to truly have effective relationships with those with whom we work: “Let’s be kind to each other and offer support when people are under the pump. We’d want them to do the same for us”.
Empathy, the notion of walking that metaphorical mile in someone else’s shoes – to understand ‘where someone is coming from’ – is so important, and yet so easy to pass by as we seek to solve a problem, or wrap up a conversation, to get on with the busyness and complexity of our day.
We can exercise our empathy through genuine, active listening and attempting to place ourselves in the shoes of the other. Our capacity to connect with others undergoes its greatest test in moments of difficult, interpersonal interaction.
When our own defences are wont to be raised, if we choose to allow ourselves to be open and honest, to slow down, to be present and to listen, to be vulnerable, we can create an opportunity for that heated moment to dissipate.
We can create a moment in which we enable the other person to be our focus and for the matter that matters to them to be at the centre of that conversation.
We can take a step that enables our colleague, or that student, or that parent, to know that they have been heard and that their voice was valued. And, as they have been understood, they may be able to return that empathy towards us.
Adam Majsay 