Right Fit Leading: Communicating with Empathy and EI

I’m grateful for continuing conversations about communicating with empathy and Emotional Intelligence (EI), among other things.

Empathy helps us share and understand the feelings of others. EI is a natural partner to empathy because it teaches us to get in touch with our own emotions and those of others as we strive to create relationships. I also focus on Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory which uses varying degrees of freedom and supervision based on employee skills and abilities.

Empathy, EI and LMX are effective in coaching and mentoring to achieve shared understanding, creating relationships, and achieving flexibility and cohesion in the workplace.

Coaching

• Asks open questions
• Enables self-discovery
• Dispels false feelings and beliefs
• Can be applied to any situation
• Future focused

Mentoring

• Answers direct questions
• Provides information services
• Seeks alternative answers
• Structured interaction
• Uses past experience to get results