What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you? I consider myself an empathetic and compassionate person. Ever since a young age I've always worried or considered another person's feelings and perspective, especially in tough situations. This can sometimes be to my own fault because I often don't understand when others don't show empathy in a given situation. I think empathy has helped me in both my personal and professional relationships by allowing me to build strong relationships. Professionally, especially in team projects or collaborations, having empathy has helped me be someone that can bring a group together and is one of my strong leadership qualities.
How does empathy help you build better software? First, by having empathy and really listening and observing a user of your potential software, you stop making assumptions on what the requirements should be and actually learn what the user wants or needs. Second, empathy allows for a more agile development process. As they state in The Muse article "The Surprising Skills You Need to Succeed in Tech", empathy helps development teams move from design's what to engineer's how. This means that empathy helps move teams through a development cycle faster because they have incorporated feedback into the cycle by listening and observing first without making their own assumptions.
Why is empathy important for working on a team? When working on a team, there can be many different personalities and experiences at the table. When team members have empathy, they are more likely to listen to others on the team and be open to different perspectives and experiences. This will ultimately lead to a better solution because these different perspectives have been discussed and there is a greater understanding between team members. Empathetic teams also help individuals with their own self-awareness and be more accepting of feedback - which will only improve their own development.
Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful. At a previous job we had regular staff meetings to update the team on different areas of the organization. During one meeting, we were discussing our Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, which focused on increasing women and minorities in the sciences. The program leader for that initiative was explaining why it was vital to the success of the science sector as a whole that women and minorities are involved. Our CEO just thought it was a "nice thing to do". Our program leader was getting increasingly frustrated and I spoke up to try and bridge the gap between the two - by empathizing with our program leader and also our CEO's point of view, I was able to diffuse the situation somewhat and highlight areas where they agreed.
When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios? It is most difficult for me to be empathetic in a professional setting when another person or persons are very defensive or completely shut off from a discussion. Because I can sometimes be too worried about others' feelings, I have a hard time understanding when people just flat out do not care or are so set in their thinking that they are not open to different points of view. I think everyone's voice is valuable and when someone thinks only his or her opinion/thoughts matter I get very frustrated. I think a way I can improve in these situations is to remember to remain empathetic and not get caught up in their defensiveness.