Empathy

Being a leader dealing with a staff member who might be experiencing a mental health issue can be hard.

Having empathy for another person fuels connection and communicates support and helps you, as a leader, ease someone's pain and suffering..

In order to be empathic towards another, you also need to be vulnerable and connect with something in yourself that understands the feelings the other person is having. Being empathic allows you to see things from their perspective, remain non-judgemental, recognize the emotions in them, and connect with those emotions.

Empathy means acknowledging someone's experience and letting them know that, on some level, you understand it.

In the video below, Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to get in touch with our own fragilities.