Radical Empathy
A Quote I’ve Been Thinking About
“Leadership starts…with the character of the leader, with your character. In order to lead others, you must first make sure your own house is in order.”
— The U.S. Army Leadership Field Manual
Something Useful
One more quote:
“Washington was planned as a city of ideals.”
— CHARLES MOORE
…That’s not mine. It’s from 1930, apparently by the chair of the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts.
The quote itself is inscribed on Freedom Plaza here in DC, which is two blocks from the White House and across from City Hall. I’d originally discovered the quote 10 or 15 years ago when, during a run, I happened to glance down and see my name carved into the ground.
This past Saturday morning, I was back near Freedom Plaza. This time, it was to get an early glimpse of the scene around the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally.
Of course, I went about four hours early, having prejudged that it would be rowdy and without a lot of mask wearing. I also assumed that there would be an embedded danger in being one of very few people of color there.
But as I rode my bike away from the gathering crowd, I reflected on those prejudgments and on a recent talk by Isabel Wilkerson, the author of Caste and Warmth of Other Suns.
Wilkerson spoke about the need for “radical empathy” in our society. Her point—about the caste system in the U.S.—was that when someone exhibits objectionable behaviors or beliefs, it’s not just their individual personality at play. They are likely influenced by larger forces that shape how they see the world and what behaviors make sense given their circumstance.
Radical empathy is about first seeking to understand why someone might legitimately hold a belief or display a behavior rather than starting with judgment of them.
Of course, that’s easy to say and difficult to do.
It’s much easier to react quickly, to defend ourselves and condemn others, or to repeat with emphasis this time our ingoing beliefs. Indeed, many of the communication challenges I see as a coach and consultant come down to those mindsets.
It’s much harder to really listen and find what might be right about the other person’s perspective. And it’s much harder to do when the perspective is objectionable to us. But it’s often worth it when we do so.
Now this isn’t to say that radical empathy is a cure all. It won’t necessarily help with the person stabbing us in the back at work. And it’s not a call for tolerance toward the worst actors like the white supremacists and violent elements that joined Saturday’s rally.
But it is a push to think about what space might open and what we might learn if our default position toward others were empathy. Surely, in these difficult moments for our organizations and our republic, we could do worse than that.
Something Fun
My college roommate, Albert, and I have a running text thread that’s 90% filled with instances of obvious and inane “analysis” from the news.
A good example: when Al Roker was asked, “How’s the weather going to be this weekend?” on the Today Show a couple of weeks ago, he replied, “It depends on where you live.”
But this week, golfer Jon Rahm may have topped all with his insightful comments on August National and The Masters:
“It's a golf course where you need to be good off the tee. You need to be good with the irons. Pretty much every part of your game needs to be really, really good, which is usually going to favor the better players. There's no surprise why the better players are usually up there in this tournament.”
So being good at golf helps one win at golf? Got it. :)
Thanks for reading!
Charles
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