Career expert Andrea Kay stresses that knowing oneself and s

Career expert Andrea Kay stresses that knowing oneself and showing empathy are important components of the soft skills that make people employable: \"Many many jobs are lost and careers derailed because of the way people act with each other, respond or deal with a to stress conflict. If you don\'t understand how you come across, or get swept away in your emotions, or don\'t recognize how others feel, how can approach a difficult conversation with sensitivity to the other person? Have you ever been surprised at how you came across to others or misread another person\'s feelings? (L.O. 1)

Solution

An organisation’s success largely depends on the ability of its employees to work together as a team. To be able to work in a team requires good understanding of one’s job and also good understanding of people’s behaviour. Many organisational leaders emphasises on the importance of having good communication skills for putting across one’s point to his or her team members - manager, colleagues, peers, sub-ordinates, etc. Communication skills not only refers to be able to communicate effectively with people in the organisation but it also incorporates the ability of an individual to show empathy with the people they work with. It is a known reality that inspite of having all the required skill-set, experience, knowledge, expertise, etc. people still lose their jobs because of their inability to respond or deal with a conflict situation in the organisation in a sensitive way. Having emotional intelligence is a crucial component of one’s personality and is a desirable trait that the human resource managers look in the prospective candidates.

In my last assignment, where I was the store manager of a leading QSR (quick service restaurant) in the city. I had 15 employees reporting to me from different departments of the store such as kitchen staff, front desk executives, delivery staff and housekeeping staff. One of the employee who had recently joined approached me for 3 days leave that included 2 days of the weekend. Although, he wanted them after more than 15 days which meant I had enough time to make some temporary/alternative arrangements, but instead of even knowing the reason, I outrightly declined his request quoting the higher footfalls over the weekend and therefore, ample availability of staff needed during rush days. Couple of months later, I came to know that his daughter was waiting to go under some surgery which was getting postponed every month because of his leave for request was getting declined every time he requested it for. As a new joined, he lacked the audacity of forcing his request on me fearing the loss of the job opportunity. I, as a manager, clearly failed to empathise with my team member and misread his feelings. I should have been more careful in at least listening to his request and responding to it in a sensitive way. I failed to communicate effectively, where listening is also an important aspect of communication, and to show empathy with my sub-ordinate.