by Manny Straehle, PhD, GISF – The Feedback Guy
Can Empathy Help Deliver Negative Feedback?
A recent study using leaders by Young, Richard, Moukarzel, Steelman, and Gentry (2017) showed that delivering negative feedback while showing empathetic concern increases an individual’s ability to deliver feedback effectively. It also increases leader promotability.
Empathy Improves Affective Responses
The researchers demonstrate that delivering negative feedback with empathy will improve the affective responses or emotional responses of subordinates. They believe subordinates will process this type of feedback as having potential benefits rather than being threaten.
What does this all mean? Well, the researchers focused on empathetic concern which is a type of empathy. To define it, they cite Batson (2011, p. 11) – “the other-oriented emotion elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone else in need.”
In other words, the individual will see the potential benefits of your negative feedback if their emotional experiences are understood. For instance, imagine a supervisor stating that “you should take your time when completing a task” when she/he observed your high level of anxieties. If you decided to take your time, you would fall behind on several projects. In this instance, your supervisor never considered the reason you were anxious.
Now imagine if your supervisor stated “You seem to working at a fast pace?” “Is there a reason for this?” “Are you ok?” “Are you feeling anxious, overwhelmed?” “Do you know help?” In this instance, your supervisor asked questions to understand your emotional experience.
Given these two responses, which one would you prefer?
Empathy Improves Leader Promotability
Second, the researchers showed that when an individual delivers negative feedback effectively using empathy, it improves subordinate’s perceptions of the leaders’ ability to deliver feedback. Therefore, the subordinates perceive you more “leader like”.
Takeaways
The authors of the article provide some takeaways which are listed below.
- Show Empathetic Concern to Your Workers
- Train to Learn About Emotional Reactions
- Reward Workers Who Demonstrate Empathetic Concern
- High Quality Negative Feedback With Empathetic Concern Leads to Others Viewing You as Leader
Find Out How Effective Your Feedback Is
Go to http://www.learnfeedback.com and find out by taking the Straehle Feedback Inventory (SFI)
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