The Power of Empathy in Leading Your Organization to Growth

As recently discussed in Inc. Magazine*, when working towards success, business owners often focus on traits like innovation or the ability to persevere in adversity. Though these traits are undoubtedly important, they can often be prioritized to the point of overlooking another — empathy. 

Empathy is simply the ability to understand the feelings of other people, be they your employees or your customers. Through developing empathy, business leaders can gain valuable insights and improve relationships with the people who make their organization successful. 

After attending and presenting at Customer Experience West last month in San Diego I was reminded of how harnessing the human element will continue to be a critical component in transforming businesses and the role that empathy undoubtably plays in an organization’s success. 

For most of JDA TSG’s clients, our team recruits and hires people with unique expertise, either in areas like accounting or those with expertise in complex systems and technologies. Over the years, I have concluded there is an inverse relationship between the level of sophistication of expertise you are asking of your people and the level of empathy they have.  

We’ve seen this come to life with one of our clients where over the 2023 tax season, we’ve honed the hiring and recruitment process to select the ideal candidate profile by leveraging our deep understanding of the business to enhance our hiring process, adding more in-depth technology screenings and an enhanced focus on customer care. These improvements have created a talented, robust team already making a meaningful impact on customers. 

“Friendly, went above and beyond answering my questions. Didn’t make me feel silly for not understanding items.” 

“JDA TSG solved all my problems and was extremely helpful in listening to all my concerns.” 

As we’ve seen success from integrating empathy into an organization – the rapid growth of technology will further underscore the need to put employees and customers at the center to build strong employee and customer relationships. Want to take a deeper dive into these topics with our team? Reach out to me to schedule a conversation.  

*2023 article: Unlocking Success in Business