Empathy had actualy played a huge part in my life. I was raised a palmist/tarot card reader turned massage therapist, just general village healer, and my first career was in hair. In doing hair empathy is the bottom line, and ideally you are leaving someone looking better than they started, but mostly you are leaving them feeling listened to. This constant commitment to presence with and understanding of ithers has allowed me ot be a better leader, a stronger team member, a better artist, and a better friend.
You have to understand the huge variety of people consuming software you are producing. They may not be able to see as well, or at all, they may not have access to the same calaber of tech and internet access, and they may not have the same language proficiency and familiarty you do. Good software works for more than the person making it. And something that works for a wide variety of people just works better.
Its easy on a team to forget that the individual isn't as important, and where your own indiviuality is valueable and needed, so is the indiviuality of every other team member. Empathy helps you build and exand on that. Empathy allows you to see when and where to set your own motivations aside and prioritize and understand where other team members may be coming from. And it is easier to let other's individuality and strengths shine when you empathise with them and imagine what they are.
I started at a new salon, and was pretty immediatly disliked by a coworker. And I quickly choose to understand it couldn't be about me, and that it would be worth trying to understand why she felt challnged, what her immediate perception of me was, and how we could get to an understanding of how she was feeling and pprocess in that face of all of that. And I was able to give her time and space, lead with compassion, and set my own ego aside, so that I didn't stoke flames and make things worse.
When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
I hold myself to an incredibly high standard, and when I feel like others clearly aren't demanding the best out of themselves, especially when others rely on them, I have a really hard time connecting to and understanding them. I would say the easiest way to improve my skills there is likely to understand my paradigm of what achieves a high standard and what is "best" is incredibly limited and specific to me. It is a limited persepective to think its a static standard, and that its one I am allowed to set. It is also easy to only see a certain side of things, and finding areas I can celebrate with them, instead of focus on about them.