Empathy is Good!

Empathy is getting a lot of attention these days with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as a new Supreme Court justice.  President Obama has long talked about "that quality of empathy ... as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes." 

Others criticized President Obama for stressing soft skills and for making something that is often thought of as "fuzzy" a criterion for such a high office.  Yet, Daniel Goleman says that empathy is one of the essential components of emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence (EQ) is just as important as IQ or more so for leaders.  This is because EQ can be learned and improved where IQ is something with which one is born and remains relatively stable.

There definitely was an emotional response to the fact that Obama raised empathy up as an essential criterion.  According to an article by Ellen Goodman:

"Lady Justice not withstanding, tradition sees the law as hard, rational, and male, while empathy is soft, emotional, female, and generally weepy.  But let us remember that empathy is not sympathy.  It doesn't require that we take sides.  Nor is it an emotional shortcut that upends all legal reasoning to declare a winner. 

Empathy is rather the ability to imaginatively enter into the experience of others.  As Harvard law professor Carol Steiker says, 'We think of this as central to moral reasoning of any kind.'"

Jann's Note:  We want to be around people who are empathetic.  We are more likely to want to follow someone who has a strong sense of moral reasoning.  Empathy is a good thing--for leaders--for people. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• New Book by Ellen Langer (delanydean.com)