Empathy like we said in the previous blog is one of the most important senses in the human experience. Empathy helps us understand what someone else is feeling. Let's take a deeper dive into the 3 different type of empathy. There is cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and empathetic concern.
Cognitive empathy is the first and most simple form of empathy. It's projecting yourself into someone else's shoes and knowing how they are thinking. You can do this while you are talking to someone. Ask yourself how do I think this person is thinking. Are they with me or against me. Most people can do these mental gymnastics and be accurate predicting how a person is thinking. It gets more complicated once you are a business owner and you must understand how all of your employees are thinking the majority of the time. This is more mental gymnastics but the more you practice the better you get at understanding people. Asking the right questions. Being alert and responsive to their needs.
Now let's discuss emotional empathy. This is very similar to cognitive empathy except rather than knowing how someone thinks, we take it a step further and know how someone else feels. This means we understand their emotions. Emotions mean energy in motion which creates a feeling. So when you have emotional empathy, you know how someone is feeling. Some people are better at this than others. It takes more than just feeling to know how someone feels. People who are really good at this can sense changes in the other persons body language, voice, tonality and more. I recommend trying to understand how everyone you talk to feels by observing body language. Listening to their voice. And most importantly, asking people questions. It's ok to ask someone how they feel, then you know up to the second, exactly how they feel. It will also help to start asking yourself how you feel. The more in touch you are with yourself the more in touch you can be with other people.
Empathetic Concern is by far the most important part of empathy. Many people live in this world not knowing what it is that they need. Some people have put in the time to understand what it is they needed in certain times. Empathetic concern is recognizing and knowing what someone else needs at a certain time. I have put in lots of work to understand my body and what it needs at certain points. Sometimes when I'm feeling down I need positivity. Other times laughter. Other times it's something more ambiguous. I have figured things out for myself so I can help other people get what they need. My business is to help people when they ask me questions. I can say I have mastered myself and am working on mastering empathetic concern. If you have a business and employ people, you will need to become proficient in empathetic concern because your employees will come to you asking for advice and it is your duty to help them if you can. Empathetic concern is a muscle that takes time to develop and I can help you with any questions related to it.
As you can see empathy it quite an important subject. I take pride in understanding the different types of empathy and would enjoy talking with you about how you can employ empathy in your businesses.