Pete Miller, a civil engineer, used to draw a hard line between work and personal life. “I thought of employees as resources. I valued them for how much they could produce and the quality of their plans,” he says. That strategy served him as a manager but not as an effective leader. He found that taking a little time to get to know his team and show he cared about their lives outside of the office shifted the way he saw people and, in turn, the way he was seen.
Can technical-oriented leaders learn how to be empathetic? Pete thinks so. Over time, Pete has come to believe people can change, particularly if they have someone pushing them gently and consistently to look at their attitude and behavior.
To learn empathy, Pete suggests starting small, as he did. Take time to get to know your employees’ lives: each one’s family, upbringing, interests, weekend plans. Even asking about something that seems inconsequential to you deepens the relationship in small but powerful ways. “I’m not a big pet person, but for some people, it’s their world,” Pete says. “Just because it’s not important to me doesn’t mean it’s not really important to other people.”
Once you learn about a person, show them you care by remembering to check in about the details: How’s their daughter’s first job going? Did their uncle get his test results back? It’s not just asking once and checking the box but taking a genuine interest in people’s lives. When people feel more connected on a personal level, working together is easier and smoother. Pete says, “By taking time to talk about personal things, they feel like a person rather than a number.”
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