THE WISDOM OF ABIGAIL: A MODEL FOR GOOD PEOPLE SKILLS People Skill #5: The Presence of Empathy5/1/2017
 Theodore Roosevelt said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Empathy is the capacity to care. It’s the ability to feel, to genuinely relate to, and understand, what another person is going through, and to get involved in a solution. Empathy is different than sympathy, which only involves feeling a person’s pain.
Empathy is doing something about it. Empathy is having a genuine interest in others. People can sense if you’re sincerely concerned about them or if you’re merely patronizing them. If you’re easily distracted while they speak, or interrupt them before they are finished, if you dismiss their opinions or try to force your views upon them, it sends the message that you really don’t care to hear their perspective, nor do you have an interest in understanding them. True empathy is asking thoughtful questions and “listening to understand” the response. It’s being focused and remaining undistracted during conversations. It’s caring enough to remember important facts, such as family issues, sicknesses, special events, and serious needs—and doing something about them. Empathy is showing support to those in need. Everyone around you needs support. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and became ashamed, every person who ever lived has carried a sense of shame about themselves and tries to cover-up what they really feel on the inside. Every day, people next to you are struggling with feelings of insecurity and self-doubt. They wonder if they really matter or if their presence truly makes a difference. Inferiority, inadequacy, even self-loathing plagues the human condition. Most people don’t need therapy, they just need a little encouragement. In fact, the best kind of support we can give are simple words of acknowledgment, hope, and appreciation. If you can be an encourager, you can have great people skills. Be generous with encouragement—it’s like verbal sunshine. It has the power to validate and impart worth and significance. Encouragement reassures someone that the work they are doing is meaningful and makes a difference. Try it today. Tell someone how much you appreciate them, how important they are, what you appreciate about them. Be genuine and sincere and see how strong your people skills truly are. For more information on great people skills, check out my latest book, UPWARD: Taking Your Life to the Next Level now available on Amazon. 5/12/2017 10:48:04 am
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It was concerning King Saul that David said, “How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished.” His was a life that began with great promise and celebration, but ended in miserable failure and humiliation. His life is an example of how the mightiest of leaders fail.
Why do great men and women fall? How do leaders, quick to ascend with such promise of unparalleled success, find themselves awash in disastrous failure and disgrace? More importantly, can the path toward one’s downfall be discerned before it’s too late and be avoided? It is the premise of my newest book, How The Mighty Have Fallen that such a decline can be detected and reversed. The life and leadership career of King Saul, Israel's first king, provides us with a treasury of examples of "what not to do." The below blog post is the first in series of excerpts from the book to examine and avoid Saul's mistakes and find a successful path through leadership. READ AN EXCERPT |
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