Empathy and emotional intelligence undefined

[suchona.kani.z]

To better understand empathy I want to tell you a story from the famous book “The 7 Habits of Successful People” by S. Covey:

“ Imagine sitting on the subway, when at a certain point a father enters with his son; the son is visibly agitated, screaming, crying and visibly disturbing all the passengers in the carriage.

A situation that bothers you, and above all you expect the father to behave like a father and put his son in line; so you arm yourself with courage, you approach the father and in a firm tone you point out to him that his son is disturbing everyone and that is not polite behavior.

The father looks at you and says: “I know you're right, but we just came back from the hospital where my wife, his mother, died .”

And here is where the magic happens: suddenly we understand the italy email list situation and this change leads us to react in a totally different way.

Covey uses this little example to lead the reader to embrace a very simple principle: “Listen before being heard” .

This is the well-known concept of empathy, which is necessary to truly understand the person in front of you, what their feelings, emotions and situation are.

This ability is of fundamental importance in any situation you find yourself in, because it allows you to respond or react to a situation after having fully understood the state of mind of the person in front of you. It is therefore the basis of emotional intelligence oriented towards others.

If you are the leader of a business or a work team, fully understanding the problems of the people who work with you allows you to react accordingly and make the right decisions, putting a space of reasoning between the stimulus and the instinctive response.