Empathy with boundaries

How to care for your team, while also caring for yourself.

I wrote this piece in March of this year… But found myself coming back to these words this summer as I’ve personally struggled with finding the “balance” between being empathic with being effective. If you’re a leader who similarly finds yourself at the intersection of care and pragmatic action – you’re in the right place 😀 Welcome to the Canopy Newsletter.

“How do you balance being empathetic as a leader, but within your own boundaries?”

Ah yes, the ultimate Catch-22 as a leader: Caring for your team while also caring for yourself.

A manager recently asked me this, and I nodded my head as I could relate all too well...

“I want to be an empathetic, understanding manager," he said, "But I’m often exhausted at the end of the day due to being bombarded with everyone’s concerns and problems. What should I do?”

You want to support your team — but you don’t have much more to give. The bottom of the barrel is scraped thin. You feel backed into a corner.

Luckily, there are sources of energy to draw from. There are ways to recalibrate and reset the boundaries for yourself, and for your team. Here are two to focus on:

(1) All Problems ≠ Your Problems.

A large part of why we’re so exhausted is because we’ve internalized everyone else’ problems as our own. On top of that, we’re trying to solve all those problems simultaneously.

Little wonder why we're so depleted 😅

Stop trying to solve all your team members’ problems. Remember: Your job as a leader, definitionally, is to help your team solve problems — not to try to solve those problems yourself.

Instead, find ways to take a step back and help your team solve the problem for themselves. Resist immediately rolling up your sleeves and trying to solve the problem for them.

For example, when someone brings you a work challenge, ask them:

• "What do you see as the underlying root cause of the problem?"

• "How do you know you will have been successful in resolving this issue?"

• "What are some ideas you have to resolve this? What’s the most likely
  outcome based on those ideas?"

You can also give pointers for how they can approach bringing problems to you in the future.

For example, you can share forward-looking feedback, such as:

• "I really appreciate you bringing this concern to my attention. In order to make sure we can resolve things like this as quickly as possible in the future, I think it’d be super helpful to have you do further research and propose a few solutions. That way, our time can be more focused on discerning a framework for the best path forward, rather than brainstorming solutions.”

Remember: Your job as a leader is to help others solve problems themselves — NOT to solve all the problems yourself.

(2) Care is only helpful if it’s mutual.

Yes, we care about our team.

But, the only way that care is helpful – to you and to your team – is if it is mutual.

You have to care for your own space, mentally, energetically, first, to then turn around and care for your team.

The cliché of the life-saving cabin pressure oxygen mask on an airplane comes to mind. There is a reason they tell us to but the oxygen mask on ourselves – before others – first. We cannot try to help our team work through a tough issue if we're worn ragged, ourselves.

Care only works if you direct it first toward yourself. Care must be mutual.

If you historically haven’t been great at this (I raise my own hand here!), here are few things to try…

Be honest about your ability to show up fully – and share that openly. Then, suggest alternative ways for your team to feel supported. For example:

• "Hey [insert name], I'm so grateful that you are willing to share so openly + honestly with me. Right now, I'm not in a great space to be able to be a sounding board for you because, honestly, I'm a bit burnt out. Would you consider writing up your thoughts + sharing them with me asynchronously so I able to read them when I have a bit more bandwidth? I really don't want your voice to be silenced, and I think if we kept talking today, I would unintentionally be tuning you out."

Be proactive and specific about how you’re looking to restore energy for yourself. For example:

• "Hey team, in order to protect my own energy this week, I am going to set up some uninterrupted work time. I'm going to put a 2 hour block on my calendar so you all know when it is, but during this time, I am going to turn off all my pings, notifications, and messaging. This isn't to ignore you or abandon you, but I've been realizing that by the end of the day I am totally tapped out. I wanted to try some new strategies to try to protect my energy so that I can continue to serve you all well. I also want to encourage you all to start thinking about how you might do the same, so I've added a prompt to our next 1:1 meetings to talk through your ideas."

Remember: Care only works if it’s mutual.

-Claire

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