Empathy isn't imagining yourself in someone else's shoes. It's concrete actions and statements that actually improve their situation. Words alone confuse things further, so real empathy has to come before you can apologize.
Welcome back to Seeking Forgiveness, part two. Okay. The second step in this nine step process I call extreme empathy and apology. And you know, empathy really we need to define because we've been taught that empathy is trying to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and looking at the world from their perspective. But this is virtually impossible to do. Name the circumstance, no matter what it is. And even if it's happened to you, you've lost a child or something really bad happened to you and that sort of thing, it's not the same. You can't say, I know how you feel because you never know how they feel. Empathy really is doing things and saying things that get things to happen to better the circumstances of those you've injured. If you're not doing that, in other words, your deeds speak louder than the words, then the words are going to continue and just cause more confusion. We'll talk about apology in another broadcast. But this concept of empathy is so important to internalize, right? It's not saying how you feel about something because you did it before. It's doing things that matter that improve other people's adverse circumstances. See you next time, Sam.
James E. Lukaszewski and Helio Fred Garcia discuss writing Influencing Leaders together
