- Author Mimi Nicklin discusses her new book and the need for empathetic leaders in Sri Lanka
Empathy advocate and author Mimi Nicklin’s book Softening the Edge couldn’t have come at a better time. The global pandemic, collapsing economies, and Sri Lanka’s current crisis all point toward the need for good leaders. Good leaders are empathetic ones, and not much is being said about that in Sri Lanka.
Empathy, according to Nicklin, is something we all innately possess, but the choice to use it is in each of our hands. Nicklin has over 15 years of experience in the marketing communication industry across 25+ markets, and her book was a bestseller in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UAE. It was launched in Sri Lanka last March. Nicklin was born in England and currently resides in Sri Lanka. We caught up with her for a chat.
Tell me about your book: Softening the Edge. What was the inspiration behind it?
The inspiration, or vision, behind the book comes directly from the 30 years of declining empathy levels and the deeply sad realities and contentious events occurring in our world. I have a deep sense that an elevation of the discussion surrounding human empathy and global leadership is a conversation we all need to have. We only need to look around ourselves to see what that picture looks like. Anxiety levels are on an ever-upward spiral – nearly 350,000 million people suffer from depression (WHO data) – the Great Resignation is impacting every global market, and we live with the deeply unsettling truth that the second biggest killer of our youth, globally, is suicide.
Empathy is evolutionary and it is a critical skill in connecting and protecting our people, our workplaces, and our teams and yet we have let years pass with this skill set declining. It is a skill set that is now a new benchmark for any organisation that gathers humans behind a mutual goal. Empathy is innate, but the choice to use it is in each of our hands, and I hope my book encourages more businesses to consider this critical.
What is the ‘global Empathy Deficit’ in your own words?
The global Empathy Deficit refers to the declining levels of our empathy worldwide. In the last three decades, we have seen a 48% drop in empathy levels globally. The impact of this deficit is wide-reaching and creates a disconnect between our people, our society, and our workplaces. The impact of this ranges from anxiety and depression to rising segregation, loneliness, and all the ‘isms’ that disconnect our world – racism, sexism, ageism, etc. Fundamentally we are less inclusive and understand each other less now than we ever have.
Tell me about your own experience of being a leader. What are the most important lessons you have learned?
I have learned that for most people to really hear people in the workplace takes both an investment and training, but that the return on both is immeasurably powerful for the teams and the organisation’s culture and performance. When people feel heard, they perform, they grow and they are motivated. It is a fundamental need for all humans to be seen and heard. Often the most powerful words in our language are “How can I help?” and as soon as team members feel you are leaning into their reality, you can see change. I have seen first-hand that to ‘forget’ that we are all human first and foremost is a perilous reality for all businesses.
How does a leader develop and practise the skill of empathy?
Empathy is a skill set we are all born with, and in this way it is based on a mindset shift and a commitment. In reality, we are talking about perspective-taking and listening – the ability to see the context from another’s viewpoint. There is evidence to show that even infants are born with this as an instinctive skill set. While these are deeply evolutionary skill sets, we are not seeing enough resources spent on developing empathy at work and therefore we are now using a host of content, workshops, and listening methodologies to teach this skill set to leadership teams globally.
How important is empathy in a workplace?
As the environments we work within become ever tougher and sharper-edged, especially in the current Sri Lankan reality, we are seeing employee productivity and performance dwindle. We have a deep problem at the exact point where humanity meets capitalism, and there is a lack of balance between the two which is impacting the performance, focus, and capability of team members. This is a problem fuelled by three key parts.
First, a ubiquitous obsession with growth at all costs which sees employee wellness drop in importance; second, a never-ending stress cycle that is impacting staff at all levels; and third, a widespread disconnection between our people and corporate culture at an unprecedented scale.
What would your message be to leaders who don’t believe there’s a place for empathy in a workplace?
The Empathy Deficit has been formed by a gap in connection with each other at the deepest social and corporate levels over many decades, and it undermines the fundamental principles of our ability to thrive at work. Workplace absenteeism and apathy are reaching epidemic proportions. Corporate anxiety, depression, and extreme proportions of burnout often complete the picture.
Never has there been a time in history when we needed intervention in our working lives more than we do today if we are to continue driving our key business indicators and sustained performance. A more motivated and sustainably performing workforce impacts all indicators including output per capita, workplace effectiveness, strategic thinking, and innovation. Regenerative Leadership, which balances humanism with capitalism which I write widely about, is this decade’s most powerful driver for a business turnaround.
Your book launched in Sri Lanka last month. What are your thoughts on the Sri Lankan business/leadership sphere?
I am a great believer in the potential of Sri Lanka and that’s exactly why I choose to be located here. I do however believe we have a leadership deficit in various industries and that much of our working youth are looking for a form of leadership that they are not yet finding here consistently. There are many very traditional, hierarchical structures still in existence here which are not allowing for the flexibility, team structures, or leadership approaches that the market needs to compete with a global market and keep our talent within our shores.
Some leaders think that being an empathetic leader is more of a feminine trait and sometimes even a weak one. What is your response to this?
A common misconception is that we are born with differing levels of natural empathic ‘ability’ as women or men, but research shows clearly that empathy is a functional skill set that we can hone and refine equally to business benefit. Neurologically we are all born with a similar ability to empathise and observed gender differences are more likely to be largely due to cultural expectations of gender roles versus any form of ‘feminine trait’.
The reality is that empathy is a hard skill – hard to master, hard to find, and hard to sustain, and many of the most famously successful male leaders globally have it mastered. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is one of them. Inherently evolution has honed our ability to mutually connect as a pro-social survival mechanism. It’s worth remembering therefore that our survival has never been about gender, but about success.
What are some of the fundamental problems in leadership in today’s world according to you and how do you think empathy would help in this regard?
Two of empathy’s greatest enemies are low time and high stress, and when you look at many leaders today, they aren’t doing enough to alleviate these factors in the workplace. Human beings do not perform, think, or design at optimal levels if they are not treated as whole employees, considering their work, their health, and their perspective. I often talk about principles of people beyond profit. This is not to say people ‘before’ profit but that we can lead a culture that looks at the value of the strength of our people as something that has commercial value.
Empathy in leadership is a data set and an input for your business and the method of balancing them reduces risk and improves uptake and trust from staff, leading to improvements across KPIs. Not enough leaders are recognising this yet. Without being able to walk in the shoes of your employees and understand their diverse viewpoints, it is nearly impossible to inspire and lead teams to success, and even harder to create marketing, powerful business decisions, or innovative products that truly and deeply resonate with people. When you factor in the Great Resignation globally, you further realise that the demand for leaders to change their perspective is not only timeous but mandatory.
What are your thoughts on the current crisis situation in Sri Lanka? How do you feel our leaders should be addressing this state of unrest and how can things turn around?
The ability to empathise with our people is our differentiator today. As leaders, we cannot ignore the context that our employees leave behind when they arrive at work every day. The ability to create an organisational culture that respects and responds to the nationwide context is critical for sustained performance. Leadership that focuses on unifying people and profit in harmony in the face of this new omnipresent turmoil will be the ones that find sustained growth. It will be the teams that feel heard and considered, as the individual humans that they are, that will be able to truly rally around the innovative solutions that will save our businesses.
Fundamentally, as we face a new era of corporate comradery, it shouldn’t be so hard to remember that above all else, all business is about people. Whatever you sell, whatever it is that makes you your money, it will be the people that dig us out of this crisis, and leaders shouldn’t risk underestimating the power they hold when they empathise with what it is that makes their people tick. As all business leaders look to regenerate their organisations in the months ahead, empathising with your workforce and your clients could be the difference between gasping for air (or fuel!) and grabbing success.
Softening the Edge is now available nationwide in stores or via jumpbooks.lk and Daraz.
In addition to being an author, Nicklin is also the host of the ‘Empathy for Breakfast’ show and ‘Secrets of the Gap’ podcast which is available on Spotify and Apple. For more information about Mimi Nicklin and her organisation consultancy visit www.empathyeverywhere.co
