“Immediately project yourself into the situation to see if you’ve ever experienced something similar? If so, you might have felt you could understand the person, and you might have even shared your own experience in an effort to relate. But Zaki would say you probably overestimated your insight into their emotions and might have skipped important questions that could have shed more light on what they’re going through and how they’re responding to it.
Humans are hardwired “to bring the conversation both mentally and verbally back toward ourselves, where we’re most comfortable,” Zaki says. “The uncomfortable thing, especially for leaders, is to sit with the humility of not knowing what’s happening in another human being and then translating that humility into a conversation by asking more questions.”
An outgrowth of leadership rooted in listening is an organization where people are comfortable stating their needs. In a workplace context, Zaki says, that might seem as if it’s employees just asking for time off. “But actually what people ask for when they feel safe is help making their work more efficient.” Zaki’s fear of being misconstrued on that point speaks to the anxiety leaders often feel about taking an empathetic approach—that it might require a compromise in results.”