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Self reflection and effective leadership
Importance of empathy in communication
The impact of self reflective leaders
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Recommended: Self reflection and effective leadership
Let's start with defining empathy. Empathy is having an awareness of the feelings and emotions of other people! In order to have someone understand you, there has to be an effort on your part to understand them, otherwise they're going to think you don't care . Understanding empathy, gives you an understanding of what others have been through and understanding others is key part when it comes to strong communication skills.
The more you understand other people, the better you'll be able to effectively communicate with them. The most effective way to make your message heard in order for others to effectively understand it is often just a matter of showing the recipient of your message that you care about what they have to say!
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Nothing gets resolved and the possibility of further problems developing becomes a real situation.
Understanding the value of Criticism
Constructive criticism: “ is designed to not only point out your mistakes, but also to show you where and how improvements can be made. Constructive criticism should be viewed as useful feedback that can help you improve yourself rather than put you down.”
Taking criticism in a constructive way is a character strength that a lot of people don't recognize or have the ability to do. Many people have poor self awareness and poor self management skills. Along with this they have issues with taking ownership of their actions and how they can potentially directly and indirectly affect others . Too often criticism becomes a negative issue for them. How criticism is perceived is also many times related to how it is presented.
The more negatively the criticism is presented, the less the chances are that it will be constructive criticism in the final stages and the less the chances are that it will have a positive impact on the recipient of the
According to Arianna Huffington in the article “Empathy: What We Need Now”, during hardships and instability of society, empathy is needed to find solutions to those issues. Huffington writes about how empathy is needed in our country in order to produce a positive social change. She begins by giving an example of a movement that Martin Luther King created and how empathy was a part of this movement. King as well spoke of how empathy is the sign of living. To become involved in the situations of humanity in order to improve it, displays that empathy is the core of a human’s existence. After reading this article, I do agree with Huffington about how individuals need to fully understand and put themselves within the situation to fully comprehend the issue to solve.
A traditional method assumes that the criticism involves both explication of what actually went on when the speaker engaged his or her audience, and an evaluation of how well the speaker performed the task of changing the audiences’ perspective of reality. It is also assumed that the traditional method will create a feeling of identification and sense of relatedness between the speaker or writer and the
For example, you set a goal to exhibit a more positive reaction to someone's criticism. You then monitor how well you do the next someone gives you constructive criticism. If you don't react positively, begin the process over of reinforcing the desire to substitute a more positive behavior, set a new goal (such as "The next time I'm criticized, I will listen and ask for ideas on how I can do better."), and monitor how I do.
Stosny states that “criticism fails because it embodies two of the things that human beings hate the most: it calls for submission, and we hate to submit and it devalues, and we hate to feel devalued” (Stosny). Furthermore, he argues that criticism is used as a form of “ego defense” when we feel devaluated by behavior or attitude as opposed to disagreeing with their behavior or attitude (Stosny). Tony Schwartz, author of the article “There’s No Such Thing as Constructive Criticism” for HarvardBusinessReview.com, says that criticism “challenges our sense of value” and “implies judgement and we all recoil feeling judged” (Schwartz). Schwartz reiterates the point that constructive criticism is a useful tool that isn’t working or doesn’t exist simply because people don’t know how to properly give or receive constructive criticism. To prove this, he lists three reasons why we assume constructive criticism doesn’t work while in reality it actually does. “The first mistake we often make is giving feedback when we are feeling that our own value is at risk. That’s a recipe for disaster, and it happens far more commonly than we think, or are aware” (Schwartz). To summarize this reason he listed, Schwartz states that when we feel like we’re being
What are the key issues? Why is he/she reacting this way? Sometimes, the person giving the feedback may not be aware of the real areas of concern. Ultimately, I see negative feedback as positive, because it shows there are people who want what you have. Negative feedback also tells us our opportunities for growth. No matter where we are in life, all of us will have blind spots we don’t know about. These blind spots prevent us from reaching the next stage of growth. While negative feedback may not be pleasant to receive, they give us a different perspective to consider. By learning from more different perspectives, we can grow much faster. If I look back, negative criticism has made me a stronger and better person. Despite the potential value of constructive criticism, many people don’t use this tool properly.” Sybil Keane, PhD, a psychology and relationship expert for the Web site Just Answer. Often, that’s because they are unsure of how to give constructive criticism without hurting a person feelings.” You should always listen respectfully when a person is trying to tell you something negative, it is easy to get upset and focus only on the critical aspects of the
Empathy’s emotional nature tempts us to pass it off as a fixed concept. Just as emotions tend to elicit a consistent response, such as tears in response to sorrow, we often categorize empathy as having particular unwavering benefits and downfalls. Empathy’s benefits lie in its connective abilities, but its short duration is often its undoing. Yet the history of humanitarianism implies that empathy is not as steadfast as its stereotype. In early Western history, pain was seen as “a pathway to spiritual enlightenment,” thus inciting little empathy from its witnesses (Hutchinson). Then, upon the emergence of modern medicine, pain became an option rather than a requirement of life, and thus the culture that had once responded to pain with apathy began to show empathy (Hutchinson). Societal expectations clearly mitigate empathetic responses to some extent, which means changing these expectations could revitalize modern humanitarian efforts. Of course, the transformation that Hutchinson refers to took place over
When many people write, including myself, they get attached to their writing. Although writing can be a personal thing, I’ve learned that it is important to step away from your paper, and take the feedback on an objective level. The first time I got feedback, I had an overwhelming urge to defend myself. I remember reading that my introduction wasn’t complete, and that my evidence wasn’t properly introduced. I wanted to walk up to those who critiqued my paper, and spit right in their faces. ‘How dare they say bad things about my paper?’ I thought to myself. From here, I went back into my essay, and looked at what they had told me were errors. It was then that I realized that they were right. My introduction needed more background information, and my evidence should have had more of an introduction. They weren’t trying to be mean; they were just helping me receive a better grade, by looking at my essay through an objective view. Now, I go out of my way to ask people for feedback, and tell them to be honest. I want my paper to be the very best it can be, so it isn 't helpful when people hold back. I now understand that those giving feedback aren’t insulting me, or the paper; they are just suggesting ways to improve, or enhance my ideas. Giving and receiving feedback is a hard, yet important skill to learn, and hope to continue improving in this
Social media has changed the way people communicate with each other and in turn, has affected our ability to empathize in both negative and positive ways. One of the most harmful consequences is the rise of cyber-bullying. Another negative issue has been the trend of trolling in comments sections of websites, chat rooms, and other online venues of communication. In spite of this, there have been constructive consequences due to social media such as the ability for family and friends to keep in touch on a regular basis. Because of social media, many people are finding support and resources to help them when they fall on hard times or experience tragedies like death and illness. Overall, social media is an exciting new world that changes as it grows and it will be up to society to utilize it for good.
(Chap 10) Soliciting feedback is needed to not only improve oneself but also performance and relationship between family, friend, co-workers, etc. I remember when I was little, I would always eat and would be bigger than the other kids in my grade. I hated when people or my family would tell me to lose weight because it hurts my self-esteem. However, if it weren’t for those feedbacks about my health, I think I would not be aware of how I would have many heart problems or diseases in the future. I’ve became more aware of how I am and started to pay attention more to what I eat and how I exercise. By being more aware of health, actions, etc. people are able to be more positive and learn to value opinions and take action. Self-assessment is when using self-inquiry and reflection in order to gain insights into oneself. Especially when reflecting on certain actions and feelings within the team. When I need calm down or reduce my stress levels, I would meditate or paint to relieve myself. Exercising also helped me to increase my endorphins, especially when there’s so many assignments or in need of a break. People adapt more to reflecting themselves would become more satisfied about
Empathy is like reading a story; although the events in the story aren't happening to us, we are still connect emotionally to them. If a character in a story we like is hurt, we feel bad for them, but oppositely if a character we hate is hurt, we feel relieved or even glad. Whether we like the protagonist or antagonist we have the natural ability to feel an emotional connection to others like us. Agreeing with the article”Empathy is an actually a choice” by Daryl Cameron, because of this instinct to choose a certain type of person to connect with, empathy is a
Criticism is something that we all deal with daily and many of us believe that when we give criticism we are expertly doing so but as we receive criticism we tend to believe the other person is degrading us personally. Since criticism is mainly to judge merits and faults of a person or their actions, it is natural for us to feel defensive as we act the way we do based on the knowledge we have and we feel that the criticism questions our knowledge. Many of us may see criticism as such and act defensively towards it but according to an article called Giving and Receiving Criticism the author Sue Hadfield states, “Constructive criticism, however, can be helpful and lead to better working relations.” (Hadfield, 2013) With this in mind we can process that criticism can be used to give feedback to better ones position or knowledge in that which is being criticized. But how do we give criticism while staying in the favor of the criticized and when receiving criticism how do we differentiate between constructive and destructive criticism? Continuing in the article the author presents certain...
People who are criticized tend to go in the opposite direction from where the feedback
In this chapter, I learned new ways to give and to accept feedback. Personally, I like getting feedback. I like it because it allows me to improve on my work. For example, whenever I write essays I like to have another person look at it so they can catch any small, or even big, mistakes that I may have done. This chapter also taught me that too much negative feedback can really take a toll on a person negatively. When you give somebody too much negative feedback, that person can start to think that they’re doing everything completely wrong and can really be detrimental to their self-esteem. To give good feedback, you should give the person more positive feedback than negative. You should use constructive rather than destructive feedback. Constructive feedback is more information specific and issue specific based on observations without using judgement. Destructive feedback is full of judgement and isn’t helping the person learn. When you get the feedback, it is best to reframe it and then reconstruct it to your advantage. Getting feedback is always a good tool to get but not when it only contains
Empathy also assists me to be helpful to my workmates. If I put their feelings at heart, I will manage to assist them when need be. They could have problems not only at the work place but also in their social life. This may be a hindrance to their productivity at work. In this case I can step in on their behalf. By being helpful to my patien...
Whether it’s constructive or destructive, is criticism easy for anyone? There’s no easy way to answer this, as there are many scenarios one can experience criticism for something. In other words, it depends on what they are being critiqued on. Overall, people would like to be under the assumption that they can do no wrong. Although I’m not extremely fond of being critiqued, it benefits me. If it wasn’t for criticism, I would have never passed my driver’s test. When I am being assessed, internally, I process what is being said and I start coming up with ideas to fix my flaws. I take criticism well due to the fact that I am always eager to improve myself, so I can reach my full potential.