You have probably already guessed what our topic is.

Yes… EMPATHY!

Having a high level of emotional intelligence requires a few prerequisites, and since empathy is the most important one, I would like to touch upon it a bit.

As you know, the shortest and most concise definition for empathy is the ability to understand the person you are dealing with.

Throughout my career, I have had many colleagues who struggled to understand people, and honestly, I did not hesitate with them much (especially if they were aware of the situation, then there was no problem). But the ones I was really hesitant about or had a hard time dealing with were those who claimed to have high empathy without knowing or caring about what was going on in the emotional world of the other person, without even trying to put themselves in their shoes for even a day.

If you are someone who has a lot of confidence in your empathy power, I have a few questions for you:

For example, what kind of a listener are you? It’s not enough to just listen with open ears to be a good listener, you also need to listen with open eyes(!).

So, when the person in front of you is telling you their troubles, are you looking at the messages coming to your phone or computer screen? Come on, I’m sure you take a short and quick glance!

When trying to predict the behaviors of a team member or someone at the same level as you, do you say, “If I were in their shoes, I would behave like this…”? So, do you sometimes (sometimes?) try to put them in your shoes instead of putting yourself in their shoes?

Do you see awareness of the feelings and emotional expectations of employees who report to you as a waste of time, just because achieving the goals expected from you by your upper management is the most important?

Do you consider building an emotional connection with your colleagues or team members as amateurish or wrong?

Do you feel more secure when you keep your distance from almost everyone?

These questions can be expanded further, but I won’t prolong it. Let me conclude like this:

If you cannot answer “yes” to even one of these questions, then I would say “yes” to your claim of having high empathy.

Here is the final question: Are you sure?