Empathetic or Goal-focused when you communicate?

In this short video, I look at what can happen when we get too focused on our goals – and how a small shift in awareness can make a big difference.

It’s something I often see in senior leaders and high performers:

That natural focus and determination that help them succeed can, at times, narrow their attention so much that they don’t connect effectively, and become too internally driven.

It’s how we’re wired.

And it’s not even about our personality or style, it’s just what happens in our brain…

…we can override and switch position – if we’re aware that it’s happening.

I consider myself to be an empathetic person in general – most of us probably do –

but when I’m focused on a deadline or specific outcome, it’s more about “get out of the way, I’m coming through”!

You may already be great at this, and super-aware. We can all slip sometimes though.

The good news is, this isn’t about changing your personality or softening the ‘edge’ that’s driving you.

It’s about noticing when your focus on outcomes starts to crowd out empathy and switching (it’s pretty much instant) to bring the warmth or connection back online.

Here are a few ways to start doing that:

Notice your signals. Pay attention to your tone, facial expression or body language.
Pause to ‘reset’ if you need to before jumping in.
Create space for others. Let people finish their thoughts. This is hard!! It takes real discipline….and it shows patience and care.
Reflect after key meetings. Ask yourself:

“Whether or not I got the outcome I wanted, did others feel seen and heard in the process?”

Often clients come to me and tell me they want more presence.

Which is about being present and intentional. It means that our presence is ‘felt’.

When we stay aware of the small cues we send, we not only achieve results but also strengthen connection, trust, and the overall experience of working with us.

Myself included!

Action step:

Reflect after key meetings. Ask yourself:

“Whether or not I got the outcome I wanted, did others feel seen and heard in the process?”

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Video Transcript:

I’ve been talking with leaders recently in a global organisation about the fact that it is very easy for us to become, when we’re goal-focused, very internally driven and not as able to connect or show empathy or interest in other people, because of that drive to get that task done.

And the research does show this — that we often become quite expressionless or we’re just not aware of how we’re coming across, because our entire focus is on getting the outcome that we’re trying to achieve from that meeting.

Some of this comes down to empathy, but you can still be a very empathetic person and it still doesn’t come across because your circuitry has pretty much switched over to goal, and needing that achievement.

Particularly the higher up in an organization you go, the more it is your responsibility to create that feeling of empathy and safety for those people around you. It’s often completely unintentional.

So, I mention that today as a thought around what are the signals that you send out? What are the signals you send out, particularly if you are in a higher positional power? What are you showing to your team or the people around you?

And how might it be possible, when you are goal-focused, to rebalance that by deliberately, intentionally reminding yourself of the fact that it is quite possible that your empathy is going to drop way down — and how can you bring that back on board?

Which you can, simply by being aware of it. But it’s often pushed to the background otherwise.

I thought that might be helpful.