After publishing my last post, I received one particular piece of feedback that really resonated with me: “What makes you a more empathetic leader? I’m craving the human-centric version of your story to get an insight into why YOU are this way…” Sharing my leadership style to help others identify their own was useful but didn’t necessarily explain the why behind mine. What is it about my journey, specifically, that makes me an empathetic leader? So here is a small part of my story and identity, and how it influences how I lead.
I grew up as a middle child in Karachi to an engineer dad and a stay-at-home mom. One of the perks of being the often ignored, middle-child is that you have plenty of opportunities in life to just step back and observe. Listen. Meditate. Learn Patience. Make the best of hand-me-down fashion. Having to constantly negotiate — a bigger scoop of ice cream or the nicer part of the shared bedroom. These are foundational steps towards building greater interpersonal awareness. You get really good at knowing when is not the right time to bring up buying new shoes just by the hunch of a shoulder or the tone of a hello. You learn to read a room, pick your battles, when to negotiate and when to compromise, understand body language, and most importantly, how to become an active listener.
I moved to the USA post-college. It's hard to describe in words the sense of alienation I experienced as a first-generation immigrant uprooting everything and starting from scratch. My decision to move was financially motivated. An economic immigrant in pursuit of the personal independence that a secure financial foundation can buy. The early part of my life here was all about staying in survival mode. Gaining enough surface knowledge to fit in without really learning how to assimilate. Being able to discuss American sports in water cooler conversations. Building up my ever-expanding pop-culture vocabulary. Learning when to casually use “ducks in a row” in a meeting. Learning everything I needed to survive and unlearning everything that held me back in some way. All things that are probably easier for chameleon middle children. In short, I spent all my time trying to make myself easier to comprehend, easier to put in a clearly labeled box. I did the hard work of making myself relatable so that others didn’t need to come down into the hole with me to try to understand where I was coming from. In doing this, I learned some hard truths about how I did not like to be treated. How frustrating it is to feel like a stereotype and not be seen for the individual that you are. When you constantly have to be the bigger person and turn a discriminatory remark into a teachable moment. It taught me how not to treat others and how I would lead differently — with empathy — if I were ever in the same position.
It takes a lot to shock the system out of survival mode; to push the primal brain conditioned for self-preservation into thrive gear. For me, it was finally realizing that work wasn’t just a basic need but rather a passion, a calling. It was about getting comfortable with the feeling of not completely belonging in any one place and embracing the sense of adventure that came with it. Having been raised in a culture that celebrates community over the individual, I had to get comfortable with a little bit of “self-obsession” and putting in the hard work of understanding my own whys and biases, what makes me tick and what does not; confronting my own pre-programing. I could not become a more intentional version of myself without understanding what that self is. My journey has only just begun and has been enormously helpful in understanding my identity as an empathetic leader.
My belief is that all humans have innate empathy. It is a survival skill that every infant needs to make sense of the myriad emotions and noise around them. Over time, the noise gets amplified and connection & feeling take a back seat. The always-on version of us in the digital age wants quick results, action over feeling. We let that version of us take over to the point that we lose the ability to tap into that inner core of empathy. Want to be a more empathetic leader? Try slowing down once in a while to notice others. Wonder at the amazing people around you. What hopes and dreams must they have? What obstacles did they have to overcome? What fears still live inside of them? Sit with these thoughts until you are comfortable with that feeling and the next time you get the opportunity to show up as a leader, guide your teams with it.
