Building Relationships With Empathy & Trust

Relationships. There is so much depth to that word. As complex as relationships are, classifying them as “good” or “bad” is extraordinarily simple. We can all easily recognize a bad relationship although we may commonly be cavalier about a good one.

It’s so easy to take our good relationships for granted. We get caught up in the day-to-day and the hectic pace of our lives so it’s not surprising that we forget what we invested into those relationships. Sure, it may have been something that we had in common to bring us together. Perhaps that was living on the same street or within the same building. Maybe it was being members of the same gym. Whatever it was, we were brought together through a shared interest.

Where we take it from there is entirely up to each of us. And it takes both of us to make a relationship work. Building a foundation of empathy and trust sets any relationship on solid ground with enormous potential for growth from there. Recently, particularly in this era of COVID, leaders have been called upon to show more empathy. Forbes has cited empathy as one of the most critical skills for leaders in times of crisis. Here’s the critical takeaway – it must be genuine – your team must feel that you truly care. 

| I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it. 

~Maya Angelou

As human beings, emotions typically override logic, and that can lead to challenging situations with potentially negative outcomes. The corollary is that it becomes very easy to use logic as a veil that separates us, and our human capacity, to feel what others are experiencing. Closing ourselves off is a protection mechanism that works well for self-preservation but it does little in regards to leading teams through crisis and in fostering good relationships.

Digging in and fostering healthy relationships, both personally and professionally, takes work. Although a relationship doesn’t sound like it should be something that takes work and it should flow naturally and organically, it does take work. Even romantic relationships take work to last despite love for each other, children and whatever other circumstances unite us a couple. As soon as trust is violated, the relationship sours, often irrevocably. 

People are skeptical by nature, increasingly so in troubled times where scam artists and pranksters leverage these periods of uncertainty and fear to prey upon those most vulnerable. Trust is such a deeply intrinsic core component of relationships. It’s how they get started.

| Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone.

~Brené Brown

Consider, for instance, the most primitive example of a relationship. Think about how we develop a relationship with an animal, be it domesticated or wild. Until we earn the trust of that animal, we will be unable to engage it, it will potentially exhibit signs of aggression or retreat away from us in fear. Why? Because we haven’t established trust. Elevating this concept beyond trust is the other core component of a good relationship and one that makes us distinctly human – empathy. We are the only species known to be able to consider how another member of our species (or other living thing) experiences a given situation.

It is that deep, emotional connection, a shared understanding of how the other feels that is essential to fostering a good relationship once we’ve set us up for the potential success of our relationship with a foundation based on trust. The word itself represents relating – that is, how we relate to each other. At the heart of that is listening and acting with intention because we can feel, share and identify with the experiential and emotional state of the other person. And the only way that we can build a good relationship is by working at it, constantly, and taking the time to truly think about – and feel – what the other party is feeling, then share with him/her/them that we understand what they are going through.

Keep learning and growing,

Gunjan