You are not supposed to everyone’s therapist. You’re not supposed to be anyone’s therapist, actually, unless you’re, you know… a therapist. 

This week I had the opportunity to speak at an industry conference in Savannah, GA (great town!) for an incredible group of publishing and tech professionals. We spent the morning talking about their resilience – how to find it, how to grow it, how to protect it – and the afternoon talking about how to make the people they work with more resilient. After that second keynote a group of people pulled me into a follow up conversation they were having.

“Listen, I want my team, my leadership, the sales people, my buyers, all of them to be more resilient. What you described sounds great. I think the strategies would work. But I don’t want to be their therapist!” This whole group of leaders agreed that every feedback or review conversation feels to them like it is either ineffective or turns into a therapy session. I get that.

So the question this brings up for me: Can leaders be empathetic, effective communicators without having to do (or dodge) “therapy” sessions with their team members? 

Also, please note, only trained people actually do therapy. The rest of us just feel like we’re forced to cosplay at it.

The answer is that you can use resilience strategies without practicing (an untrained version of) psychology. Strategies are just that – ways you can approach someone to help them navigate change more successfully. You can listen empathetically to someone’s concerns or frustrations without helping them try to fix those issues. You can give processing time without agreeing to listen to all of their processing. Your role is to offer these strategies and put up a healthy boundary around the reaction. 

What does that look like? Here’s one possible response:

“I appreciate that you’re giving this some thought. Will you get back with me (tomorrow, next week, pick a time) and let me know your plan to move forward?”

You can have empathy “I care about what you’re feeling” without working through all the details of that with your co-worker or employee. 

Agree or disagree? What thoughts do you have about this?

All my best,

Dr. G

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