Social awareness and empathy

During this guide we will be addressing two concepts of special importance for teamwork. The concepts we are referring to are social awareness and empathy. Both are pillars of interpersonal development, communication and productivity within work groups. Thanks to empathy we can perceive the emotions of our colleagues, know how they feel and focus our treatment in such a way that we do not generate contradictions in them. Social awareness is a very useful tool, it makes us better people and allows us to transmit a more effective message to the group that listens to us.

Having said that, we will now see what each of these concepts is based on.

Empathy

Empathy is defined as the ability to put ourselves in the other person's place. It is a personality trait of utmost importance, people who lack empathy are close to sociopathic traits, fail to generate affection among the people around them and find it difficult to relate in society. Every leader who wants to be respected and loved must be empathetic, know how to read the emotional state of those who interact with him.

Thanks to empathy we can manage conversations towards a point of understanding. To develop this skill, it is enough to ask ourselves how the person talking to us is feeling, how my words and actions may affect him/her. If we truly want to be understood, if we want our message to have the greatest possible effect, it is important to think like the listener, to step outside our perception and try to see things as our partner sees them. Only by seeing things as the other person sees them can we measure the impact our message will have on him/her.

Empathy is widely used in marketing, politics, negotiations and almost any field that involves relating to another person.

Social Awareness

Social awareness is the ability to recognize and appreciate the problems and vicissitudes that a particular social group or collective is going through. Developing social awareness makes us sensitive to issues that do not affect us personally, such is the case of the most discriminated minorities, who suffer issues that are alien to our daily lives but that we can perceive and suffer them just like them, identifying ourselves and supporting their causes.

Social awareness in the labor collective has the same impact as in the social sphere. Our work collective is like a small society, with its problems, aspirations, desires and concerns. From our position we cannot experience what are the issues that most afflict our workers, but by using social conscience we can put ourselves in their place to understand why they feel the way they do and what is the most appropriate solution to their problems.

Social awareness is an essential skill for any boss or leader who wants to keep their employees happy and satisfied in their work environment. Social awareness is often confused with empathy, as they share many similar traits.

Social conscience and empathy

The fundamental difference between social conscience and empathy is that the former is focused on collectives. It induces us to feel how a certain group that shares a series of our own experiences and situations, alien to our everyday life, feels. On the other hand, empathy is something more personal, focused on a particular individual, with whom we are relating and we want to understand their feelings, state of mind and the effect that our message provokes.

Both concepts are of utmost importance and should be worked on daily as a basic goal of our personal and professional development.