Narcissism and it's Disconten

Definition

Narcissism is one of several types of personality disorders. It is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration that troubles relationships and lack of empathy from others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.

 

The word 'narcissism' stems from Greek mythology. Narcissus, a young hunter and an exceptionally handsome man. One day, tired from hunting and the heat, he lies by a splendid spring. As he is drinking the water, he sees his beautiful image. He falls madly in love. He refuses to drink water from the spring for he feared that his lovely image will disappear. In time he wastes away, still enamoured with himself and his death is marked by the growth of a single flower. 

 

“NARCISSIST”, sounds offensive, doesn't it?

Social Narcissism reflects our current cultural reality. Its growth is an increasing challenge to the businesses worldwide. Narcissism is the most overused, misunderstood and  problematic word of our times. The Narcissus, in our un-mythical world, we are surrounded by these selfish, thirsty beings. Like our parched GREEK FRIEND, they are addicted to feeling special. Admiration is everything. And if left unchecked, this cyst boils over into feelings of entitlement, blame, overrating one's abilities, lashing out at criticism, arrogance and bullying, with very little room for empathy. In fact, many people award them grudging admiration for their success. This allows everyone else to replicate these abusive behaviours by either mimicking or self-developed. The definition above mentions narcissism as a medicalising bad behaviour.  It is not actually a diagnostic term. Narcissism Personality Disorder is a diagnosis because these people don’t show up to be diagnosed anyhow. 

Narcissism is a personality pattern. It is a way of relating to the world much like we describe someone as stubborn or agreeable or introverted. Some of these patterns are valued in the society and others aren’t. As a matter of fact, most people don’t get called narcissistic as a compliment. How much ever we accept to not accept it paradoxically, we reward it. Dr. Allen Frances, one of the architects of the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder and he argues that “we actually give badly behaved people an obtainability”call it a diagnosis. When a person is cruel, rude or narrow minded disliking the pattern of this behaviour doesn’t make it a mental illness. That person must be experiencing problems in their life. 

 

If we enlist “things” that make up narcissism, we funnel it down to an uncomfortable highpoint. Narcissism comprises of certain pillars like lack of empathy, lavishness, entitlement, hollowness, admiration & validation seeking, hypersensitivity, rage & a tendency to manipulate and exploit people. Their behaviors are quite confusing as they tend to be emotionally detached but they are hyper-responsive. They have temper triggers that sets off in no time. When their fragile egos get threatened. Narcissism is synonymous with PATHOLOGICAL INSECURITY. 

 

The key to understanding a narcissist is that they are constantly feeling empty & unstable. Their lavishness is actually an immature defence to a threat against their sense of self and they are desperate for everyone to keep validating them. On their good days they look happy, great, lavish but on their bad days the disguise crushes quickly & we see misappropriate rage, shame and cruelty. The commonality in narcissistic people in relationships is clear that these relationships were being balanced simultaneously by hope and fear. Hope that someday it would get better if they kept trying and fear that if they fall out of the relationship the will be left alone forever.

 

The world is more insecure and the reasons are varied. It is observed and researched that more of sadness, anger, stress & physical pain. The increasing insecurity in our world and the platforms that capitalize on it has created an optimal fertile ground for narcissism to raise and flourish. When human value is driven entirely by external incentives like success. The qualities like empathy do not have a fighting chances as they are no longer valuable. Narcissism is tempting making it an aspiring form of personality trait. There are what we call the three ‘C’s of narcissism Charm, Charisma and Confidence. This doesn’t mean that all charismatic and charming people are narcissistic.  However, we know that the characteristic is so attractive that they increase the chances that we are blinded to more toxic characteristics that unfold at the same time. 

 

When a person is in a relationship and know the partner is a narcissist why do people still continue?

Well it is because all of us are exposed to those narcissistic charm, charisma & confidence. In fact, we may be more defenceless for being abuse by the narcissist. If we originate form a family in which the pattern of narcissism was normalized such as having a authoritarian, distant invalidating or abusive parent. Our own insecurities render us weak and stop us to climb out when the charming and charismatic personality turns into invalidating and abusive. Most of us are great in giving second chances and are major accelerant for narcissism. 

 

When we are in a narcissistic relationship we tend to make excuses to cover up:“that’s how he is. He didn’t really mean it.” And that’s how the prevalent obsession in any form of narcissistic relationship, whether with an individual/family/company/culture at large can slowly increase and take over. We consider giving a second chance is committed. Our culture is immersed in the tales of hope, redemption & forgiveness. Considering it warm and healthy but when in the wrong hands, hope and forgiveness may not represent as an opportunity, for growth/change or restoration. Rather, a permission to just keep things going as they are because for narcissists forgiveness is interpreted as a characteristic they carry which gets appreciated and gives respect. 

 

Have we created a world where narcissism is becoming necessary to succeed in the new worldly order?

Here is a split in thoughts and acceptance as the very quality associated with materialistic success are actually bad. Because, while these qualities may be festered and fostered by our cultures, society, schools, economies and communities remember they are never going to do any good to our most valued and close relationships. These relationships includes parents, children, siblings, extended family, friends, colleagues, business associates, spouses & partners. 

  

In the most intimate relationships we see profound impacts of narcissism. A relationship with a narcissist is a gradual teaching where one slowly becomes habituated to their lack of empathy, tantrums, rage, insults, their entitlements and challenges to our realities. Their insulting words slowly become your self talk and before you realise you form a new belief that “I am not enough”. 

 

Narcissistic Parent 

They undermine the fundamentals of healthy relationships. Basic fundamentals of mutuality, respect, compassion, patience, honesty and trust. These are things which are not characterised in a Narcissistic system or a person.

Anyone who has or had narcissistic parent will acknowledge, it was the foundation to who they are today. It has taught  a sense of insecurity in a chronic wordplay at psychological level. From an early age, narcissistic parents leave a legacy, including an inability to trust ones own instincts, to safely enter relationships and a lifetime spent trying to gain notice of the unapproachable, detached & disconnected parent. 

 

Narcissistic Leader

The proliferation of narcissism in our culture, governments, companies and world have created very difficult workplaces. The narcissistic boss is the insecure tyrant. They create a workplace ruled by fear and deception, abuse and unkindness. 

 

The most painful realization is that narcissistic patterns are just not that agreeable to change. At the minimal the narcissist has to recognize the harmful pattern of their behavior then they want to change it and then they have to put it in the daily word of change. There is a small number of cases where that somewhat happens, but under conditions of stress and frustration the usual issues of rage and anger will pop up. Thus, making the rubber band of personality returns to it usual shape and size. The small changes may not be enough to make a close, intimate relationship sustainable. If somebody is not ready to recognize that they need to make changes because they are hurting other people, there is a little likelihood that they will go in for a change. But there is a likelihood they will continue to blame other people, the world or you for their bad behavior. 

 

Can there be happy endings where narcissistic or antagonistic personalities and cultures are connected?

The greatest challenge about happy endings in real life is that they rarely look like the ones we crafted when we are young. Its easy to get stuck in our own old narratives. People who come from narcissistic families may feel as though they missed out on having a parent who is an ally or supporter, even as they go to adulthood. People who are married to narcissistic partners may find themselves stuck in a nightmare of emotional abuse.

 

So how do we, as business owners, as managers, leverage these challenging personalities, to ensure that we have successful businesses and positive working environments? (Business/ organizational solution)

You all know one! You might even have interacted with one! You might even be one. Well, one thing we know for sure is that their numbers are increasing. High time we need to have a solution in place for Narcissistic people. Regardless of the cause, narcissist people can be extremely difficult to employ and even harder to work for. 

 

The first step is to hire accordingly. In this situation, you must know that these personality types exist. You must lookout for it. By doing so, you can help to screen and clear out those pathological, and the extreme narcissist. We know that those personality types are extremely toxic and unproductive in the workplace, even as leaders. Additionally, when you're screening, you need to identify not only the job skills that are required, but the personal skills that complement that job. By doing so, you can actually use the strengths of these personalities to your advantage. We know that they're extremely persuasive. We know that they function well as islands in and of themselves. We know that they can be very engaging, and they're also extremely dedicated. So, by clubbing the personality skills with the job itself, you can ensure greater success. 

 

Second Step, define your environment. You must lead and empower the leaders. If you don't lead, the narcissists will. Additionally, create a in-group like environment. This is a team organized spirit, the greater good rules. Make sure you have a group. Group success is your measurement for all individuals. By doing so, you can ensure a much greater, powerful workforce. Additionally, they need to be fed constantly and frequently. We need to feed them with praise. We need to give them raises and incentives, again, frequently. Again, we need to appraise them as well and give them constant feedback on how they're doing. 

 

Finally, Third Step, we need to create a supportive work environment, not only for the narcissistic personalities, but for everybody else. By doing so, you can ensure that there is good communication, and if there is behaviour that's offside, that it can be checked quickly, and without any kind of penalties to those people reporting them. Next, you need to clearly set your expectations. Not only defining the job skills required, but the overall workplace behaviour that's acceptable to you. The more specific you are, the better off you are. This, again, has to be reinforced frequently. People need to be reminded that this is actually what is required. Next, accountability at all levels. People need to be reminded that confidence does not necessarily equal competence. Documentation is also important as a protocol for this type of personality. We know that narcissists tend to be highly arguable. So, you need to protect yourself, your employees and your business by documenting poor work behaviour and clearly advising what next steps are. 

 

Last but not least, there needs to be a clear disciplinary process in place. This needs to be applied at all levels, from the CEO down. It needs to be consistently applied, and there're no free passes. By doing so, you can increase morale in the company itself and have consistency in the application process. By following these three steps, you can effectively leverage these challenging personalities and cultivate an environment where all employees and your business can bloom and thrive.

 

All of us are bigger than this epidemic of narcissism. Any of us can change the ‘you are not enough’ narrative that still resonates. We can re-parent ourselves. Where there are scars, beautiful things actually can spring forth. Khalil Gibran writes, “out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

 

Yes, the world is in fact becoming more narcissistic and insecure. Don’t let this global trend of rudeness affect you. Protect yourself, find your communities, find common grounds with other people instead of living in polarization. Practice kindness and empathy even when people are not. Choose your romances and friends with care. Every life story can be a miracle or a tragedy. It just depends on how you write it. These days when the world is in such a disarray anyone who is suffering with their empathy unbroken, their heart sound, their integrity in place and their sense of humor intact is nothing short of determined.

 

 

ADDICTION FOR APPROVAL

Is seeking approvals an addiction, Really? 

This can be the first question you may consider reading the title of the blog. The answer to this quarry is ABSOLUTELY YES, MOST OF US ARE ADDICTED TO IT. 

Approvals can have impacts on people more than addiction to substances. People get the momentum on approvals from others defining ‘how a person feels about you’. It is a sense where we consciously suggest that “the way I feel about ME is based on how somebody else feels about ME and it is somebody else’s feeling much more valuable than yours.”This is because we have given the power to someone to think and change our thinking and decision-making abilities and this is called APPROVAL ADDICTION. 

Approval Addiction is an expression to an infection from rejection where it doesn’t make us bleed physically but emotionally it hurts a lot. It is interesting for people who think they have a personality type that does not make us an approval addiction, instead of meeting our own needs we are accommodating others preferences. We end up giving people what they want and not something they need. This satisfies our need for attention more than assistance. So instead of meeting their needs we are accommodating their preferences because our activity although from the outside looks we are doing it for them wherein from the inside we are doing it for ourselves. We give them help they give us compliments, approvals and getting a feel of being needed.

 

The feeling of being not needed or rejection is FEAR. Approval Addiction follows Passive Aggressiveness as well, we keep stuffing feelings within because there is conflict avoidance as we don’t want to say what we feel because we don’t want to offend the source and pleasure we receive of being NEEDED. So, we choose to rather feel the discomfort with our feelings than dealing with the possibility of rejection. We tend to suppress discomforting feelings repeatedly then the outcomes is inevitable. When we don’t show our expressions where they should be expressed and control them, they come out when they shouldn’t be expressed and are out of our control. When we should be talking about an issue in this year but we start going all the way back from 2010 coming on to every suppressed feeling. This is genuinely because we are ready dealing with the discomfort in dysfunctionality rather than the possibility of they rejecting us then.

 

“I feel what I feel but I won’t say what I feel”, this plays with every aspect of our lives. It will troll professionally and torture socially and it will make us feel miserable in every relationship whatsoever. Every relation is on reciprocity, freely expressing needs and expressions. This is a vicious circle where we are when its needed by somebody more than anybody really needing it protecting our necessity of being needed. The struggle to keep up with being needed complements an ANGER. Anger here is the secondary expression for instance first we are cheated then is when we are angry.

 

We cannot realize unless we are in denial and at some point, people need to admit that “what people think about me extremely matters”. Recalling an action we took when the inner conscious asked us to do something nevertheless we did something else to avoide being rejected. Many of us aspire to lead and some are already leading. It is a difficult situation here as leading principal says YOU DO NOT LEAD THE ONES YOU NEED. When you need the ones you lead they are helping you where it should have been the other way around meaning that rather than guiding them we will be accommodating their needs. If we do not take control of this behavior of ours it limits our true potentials in life. So, when we want to be in demand we need to understand that every day I am making decisions that is disappointing people because if we have to reject offers and opportunities everybody is not going to be motivated. Leading we will except every opportunity, respond to every request helping everybody not realizing that we didn’t live life for ourselves. Three things people with approval addiction face on a regular basis:

1.    Suffering abuse from the ones being satisfied.

2.    Having many useless people in their life.

3.    Pursuing other people’s preferences ignoring own purpose.

 

Now realizing that Approval Addiction blinds us and puts excuses in our tongue so that we don’t see the real side of people and make excuse we needing their approval. It is essential that we stop wasting our time trying to DELIGHT PEOPLE that is to accomplish something that cannot be accomplished. Contribute the best to satisfy them and they will have complained to counter remembering the times we have failed to deliver.

 

I wish each one of us get rid of APPROVAL ADDICTION. Most of us are and don’t really realize suffering. Let’s declare that we will jump into a sea of possibilities we haven’t considered or heard before for betterment of our quality of life and aiming to achieve goals set by us seeking no approvals.

HEALTHY ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP !!

Intimacy, Security, Respect, Good Communication and a sense of being valued these undoubtedly are elements which most people would agree involves in a healthy relationship. Many researchers and scholars have worked and agree to these elements in their findings and articles on healthy relationships. They also mention that frequent arguments between couples, lack of support, contempt, criticism, hostility are a few negative elements that take place in the relationship causing a lot of unhappiness and discomfort to either partners and in most cases, includes both. This leads to an ending of a relationship or divorce, a decision taken to part ways as there is no substantial reason to continue. Break-ups or divorce is just not any course of action or judgement, it is by human psychology making people physically and emotionally confused. This is by far the only reason that people engage into unhealthy relationships. Majority of us are unaware of the elements, do’s and don’ts of a healthy relationship because we are never formally explained. We learn from our experiences, right from the first couple in our lives our parents adding to famous personalities thinking and forming an idol healthy relationship prototype or benchmark. The truth of the moment is we consider Couples Therapy or talking to elders when it’s almost unamendable. Here the couples realize either the elderly or therapist do not understand or are considered biased or they were never meant to be together. The true reason being we have become intolerant to change and cannot accept the fact went were wrong somewhere. Most of this knowledge based on personal experience is shared with us right before marriage be it talking to a groom or bride to be. Most of it are partners who feel trapped in their relationships and are sharing perspectives of their partners being incompetent feeding the misery making it even more difficult because the person has already selected and what if it’s a bad choice for a partner? Isn’t that a bit too late to even share experiences and perspectives? The bottom line is “NO EXPERIENCED OR THERAPIST GUIDANCE CAN MAKE UP FOR A BAD PARTNER CHOICE.”

We need to adapt and learn about having a healthy relationship because it has been limited as they fail to address three major concerns. 

1.     Knowing what you need in a relationship 

2.     Selecting the right person 

3.     Developing and using skills from the beginning. 

We need to learn about our future relationships at a very young age following a skill based approach to relationships functioning leads us to create a healthy relationship reducing the ones that may lead to unhealthy ones. It consists of INSIGHT, MUTUALITY AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION forming the base of Romantic Competence. It is the ability to function adaptively across all aspects of a relationship process right from understanding what you need in choosing the right partner to building a healthy relationship, maintaining and growing one also for times where you need to get out of a relationship. 

INSIGHT is about awareness, understanding and learning. With insight, you can understand who you are, what you need and why do you react the way you always do. For instance, you are being irritable to your partner, with insight you may realize it is not something related to your partner it can be your work stress where you need to calm down so that it doesn’t bleed on to your relationship. It will also let you understand your partner better making you to able to anticipate the positive and negative consequences of your behavior. With insight, you will learn from your mistakes in a way that will allow you to behave in the future. For instance, maybe you will be able to understand that you are the kind of person which jumps into romance early and then things don’t work out and then would realize for the next time would be slow and easy to not to repeat the same mistake.  

 

Mutuality, it is about understanding that both people have needs and both senses of needs matter is the second skill. With mutuality, you will be able to communicate your own needs clearly likely making it to be met. For instance, you are to attend an office function and are needed to deliver a speech. You will be able to communicate to your partner that its going to be quite stressful there your need of them to accompany you as they are a good support. Similarly, with mutuality you will even understand to meet your partners needs as well and also makes you make decisions which are best for the both of you. Switching roles in the previous case, consider your partner has asked you to accompany them to an office event you will be able to rationalize and fulfill their needs adjusting your schedule for that day in advance not to disturb your priorities as well.

 

The third skill is EMOTIONAL REGULATION, is the response to things that happen in your relationship. With emotional regulation, you will be able to keep your emotions calm in your relationship and keep things in a positive angle of approach. For instance, in tight situations you may consider it as a disaster, difficult for you to handle and things like it’s the end of it wherein with emotional regulation you will consider it something that is manageable and you will be able to handle it. With emotional regulation, you will be able to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and not react impulsively making you to think yourself through the situation easily. It will make you maintain self-respect and commitment to your needs even if bad things happen in your relationships.

 

So, I believe insight, mutuality and emotional regulation when practiced on a day-to-day basis can help people with a healthy relationship. Being romantically competent at a young age is associated with more adaptive relationship functioning and greater individual wellbeing. We may know what a healthy relationship looks like but people have no idea how to have one and no one teaches us to do so. It is to know what an individual wants in a relationship and is able to choose the right partner. The decision made should be strong enough to deal with the challenges the relationships bring. Bringing to the conclusion that we need to learn and build skills right from the beginning. As this is the notion of Relationship Competence about. I strongly believe for sustaining a successful and motivated life the key is a good partner that we lack by making wrong choices and end up unhappy and lonely. I hope this adds value to your living and may you have a relationship you can depend and feel proud of. 

Depression: A disease or an Epidemic of Modern Civilization

I believe DEPRESSION is tragically misunderstood word in the entire English language. The fact is Depression has radically tow different meanings depending on the context. So, everyday conversations when people say that they are depressed, they use depression as a synonym of sadness. It’s a normal reaction to the state of our lives making all of us know the pain of Depression. Yet clinically depression is a short hand for devastating illness which is known as Major Depressive Disorder. This is a disorder that robs people off their restorative sleep robs their energy, focus, concentration, memory and their abilities to enjoy the pleasures of life. For most individual it robs them from the ability to love, work, play and will also rob them from the willingness to live. Clinical Psychologists explain it as it lights up the pain circuitry of the brain to a point that if you happen to communicate with a clinically depressed person and they speak their heart out they will tell you it is torment, agony, torturous and many attempt death as a means to escape. Depression is the major reason that drives people to suicide and *India reported 381 deaths by suicide daily in 2019, totalling 1,39,123 fatalities over the year, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB) data.**Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Suicide is a global epidemic and occurs throughout the lifespan not pertaining to specific gender, tradition, culture, religion or race and it’s getting worse as the rate of depression is increasing generation after generation. So, every successive birth generation has higher rates of depression than that of which preceded it. Now is the time we need to understand what’s happening around the world and what’s behind driving this epidemic. 

 

What causes Depression is a question that is pretty complicated. There are articles after articles published that have given different factors that are implicated towards the onset of depression reasoning biological, cultural, social and behavioural. If we way through the complexity we do find a common underlying pathway i.e. a primary driver or trigger called the Brains Runaway Stress Response. In simple terms, it’s the flight or fight response we adapt to stressful situations we come across at times. This response has evolved from the earlier ancestors of the human race. It was evolved as a reaction to a predator, physical threat or any form of danger and they reacted with intense physical activity which may go on for a few seconds or minutes and in some extreme cases may go on for an hour and its completely a different behaviour an individual adapts and its completely fine if the mode shuts off when its supposed to. For generations the current generation the shutting off for the stress response goes on for weeks or months and at times even for a year. When the stress response remains on it is very toxic especially to the brain and body of that very individual. It is disruptive to the neural circuit veins in the brain many of us may not have even heard off but this dispersion can directly lead to something commonly known as CLINICAL DEPRESSION. If left unchecked it can actually damage the brain over time leading to inflammatory reaction to body and brain. It is clinically proven that an inflamed brain is a depressed brain.

We have understood about certain common diseases which now are mythically taken as hereditary diseases like Diabetes, Arthritis, Thyroid, Cholesterol, many form of Cancers and currently Clinical Depression is the new commonly heard medical issue. Medical Science categorises them as inflammatory disorders. They are epidemics in the modernised industrial world and can be termed as a lifestyle disease. Speaking of lifestyle comparing our urban culture to a below the poverty line existing in cities lead a very hard life. They have high infant mortality rate, higher exposure to parasitic infection, they do live around modern civilization but not in it they do complain, get angry but they do not turn their stress response mode and do not become clinical depressed as they still live a life based on daily wage format just like non-modern days, Hunter-Gathering method. Modern time life from the industrial revolution onwards is term Industrial Mutated Environment and has been a complete mismatch between the mind, body and gene we were born with the environmental reality. 

Dr.Stephen Ilardi, a professor of clinical psychology defines it as “We were never designed for the sedentary indoor, social isolation, fast-food laden, sleep deprived, chaotic pace of modern life”.

 

If we keep inducing and countering the epidemic with anti-depressant medicine in the system we are not going to fix it. The answer lies in change of lifestyle, I don’t mean to say we should go back hunting and scavenging for food or stop innovating and adapting to modern times. We simply need to practice Lifestyle Change. A minimalistic time daily given by us for us can help fighting the epidemic causing a supressing life and many times a dreadful end to life. We have varied stories of people ending earlier than their actual time. I wish everyone a healthy, beautiful and non-depressive life.

(*Ref:https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/09/01/suicide-cases-in-india-ncrb-report.html)

(**Ref:https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/suicide-data)

 

EMPATHY : Modern day most powerful Invention

 

Today I write about an experiential learning and realization. A word you came across somewhere although meaning and importance remains undetermined. Working with many organizations with various job functions and reporting to different characters called Managers/Superior/Leader. As I sit back working from home past eight months I started to identify my role and position in the team of every company I have worked in the past and I currently work and I started to all like the jobs I have ever done. All this because I was left with sometime with me during this pandemic. I learnt about EMPATHY.

 

Leaders/ Managers need to have both perspective and empathy. This is typically not practiced anymore because todays leaders/managers strongly believe holding a status and a designation comes with great power of controlling.

 

Theories say “LEADERS DO NOT REALLY NEED TO BE IN-CHARGE. THEY ARE ANTICIPATED FOR TAKING CARE OF THOSE ACTUALLY IN-CHARGE”. The functioning of this designation is really created for people which they do not realize. It begins with we getting our formal education from school, high school (senior secondary schooling) and a Bachelor’s Degree course. Most of us continue to complete a Master’s Degree to get further knowledge and skill set to procure superior job opportunity. As we complete our education that moves us to become an employee of our first job. There we are inducted and given a detailed tour of the office place and culture explaining us the job description. We implement theoretical knowledge we have gained. It is necessary for us to perform and genuinely WE WORK HARD. As we work from days to week, weeks to months, months to a year and we getting at our job we get promoted. Promoted to a designation where you have to direct the position where you began in the organization but no body shows us how to do that. That’s why we have managers or leaders who are really micro managers as they have already done that job are now supposed to lead. There is a literal transition here from learning how to do the job and being responsible for managing people doing that very job. Some people are slow towards accepting the transition where as some are pretty quick and some do not realize this transition. The origin for the designation requires the organization to communicate how to be a Manager/Leader. Leadership is a skill like any other, it is a learnable and a practicable skill. 

 

Like parenting, everyone has the capacity to be a parent. That doesn’t mean everyone should be a parent. Leadership is the same, which means everyone has the capacity to be a leader. That doesn’t mean everyone should be a Leader. It urges you to act when leading and everything goes well you give away all the credit and reversing this if everything goes wrong you take the responsibility and assist mending it. This doesn’t mean you be harsh and pressurize the people who you manage, instead you simply ask them to try again and helping them. You as a manager/leader are also not responsible for the result too. Think of a CEO having business priority as “customers”. They won’t as they are not responsible for the customer they are responsible for the people under them who are again responsible for other people and so on. 

 

Some months back I had been to another city for a meeting and had to check in a hotel. The reason hotels are wonderful is not the fancy beds, any hotel can do that. The experience developed by guests rightly is. Every time I walked pass any hotel employee, they smiled and said “Hello sir, hope you’re stay is pleasurable”. You feel their delight genuinely and not because someone has instructed them. Continuing, I happened walking in their café for cup of coffee. Welcoming me the barista, Harold a friendly and engaging guy and apt for the job. I remember actually giving him a 100% tip for serving me. Talking to him curiously I asked him “so Harold do you like your Job?”, to which he instantly replied “Yes sir, I love my job”. Taking the conversation forward I asked him “what is this hotel company doing to you for you to tell me that you definitely love your job”. Again, promptly Harold replied to me that “not only my manage, anyother manager too coming in the café would ask me about my job, the experience working here and what could that manager can do for him to make it better”. Then he expressed something that got my attention, he added he works in this cafe in the second half of the day and the first half he is a barista at a nearby hotel. He said working there is different, the managers are too authoritarian. He is working there just for his paycheck. Same person working two cafes. 

 

We as leaders are always criticizing our people as we need the right people but the reality is it’s not the people it’s our leadership. It’s as simple as leader creating an environment where people perform that leader gets employees like Harold’s of the in-house cafe in whereas if leader creates a bad environment we will get employees like Harold working for the other hotel. We have become competitive were hiring and firing is natural. Like if some employee is not able to perform the first instinct of the manager is “You are OUT”. This is because we DO NOT PRACTICE EMPATHY.

 

Let’s begin with imagining Case One: Your manager informs you about the performance for the quarter cautioning you it will be difficult for you to continue being on the job. How inspired are to come to work the next day? 

 

Now let’s Imagine Case Two: Your manager informs you about the bad performance for the past quarter and asks about you or anything troubling you. Also asks you to open up as feels worried and would help you. Now how does that feel?

 

This is Empathy, it is about being concerned about the person and not just the output. We all have performance related issues and Mangers can only see performances. Our working flair has changed in the past decade, we are suffering from the business theories left over from 80’s and 90’s. They are bad for people and bad for business now. It worked then not necessarily works now. A decade ago people stood in long ques to make a call and now we have cellphones. That’s innovation and taking a step ahead. 

 

The directives followed currently is similar to a football coach training players making the fans as priority. Will that model make a winning team? We don’t consider the working directives followed from yesteryears outdated and consider them as mantras to success. The model used was appropriate then as they were short on resources and technology. The business environment was very peaceful, supportive and option proof. The world we live today is competitive, monopoly seeking and options are plenty.

Therefore, we work in an environment where our managers repeatedly reminding us that we can be replaced on performance failure. Hence, we are working AFRAID. We are teaching our youngest generation that how can anybody not stand up saying “I Made a Mistake”. The need for a change is to make a person comfortable to be vocal saying “I made a mistake, I screwed up, I didn’t perform well, I am scared”. How will a company excel if people working in it cover up mistakes with something to distract avoiding to speak up that they have made a mistake. 

 

This what empathy exactly is. If a complete generation is troubled and struggling yet constantly failing, maybe the reason is not THEM. The reason for all my failures is no one else but ME. We grow up in an environment around our grandparents or parents or siblings always there to give us empathy. Aren’t we the same born human being as we grow up?

 

I conclude with saying EMPATHY is something a leader extending their support and help need for the people to perform better and the people will return the Managers with expected performances directly boosting the Company’s growth.