Empathy does not mean accepting bad behaviour

Empathy is good…until we overdo it. Hear me out!

☀️  The bright side

Empathy is generally seen as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.

I think we can agree that having this is generally a good thing. Here are two quotes that perfectly capture my thinking:

“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” – Abraham Lincoln

“The more empathy I have, the less annoying other people are.” – Alan Alda.

🌑 The dark side

My kids asked me before: “Daddy, can you die from drinking water?“

My reply: “Of course! Too much of anything is bad for you.”

💡💡💡moment!

It’s the same with empathy. Too much of it, and positive flips to negative.

Here’s a quote:

“Have empathy for others, but do not excuse bad behaviors.” – Elizabeth A. Segal

Empathy might also increase our degree of unhelpful sympathy. When we do this, we are not clear-headed anymore and end up in the ‘sympathy trap’.

⚡ The Sympathy Trap

When we are in the sympathy trap, we feel bad for someone so much that we look for reasons to excuse objectively bad behavior.

Here a few examples that might prompt this:

A person who lost a family member and begins to write rude, snarky work emails.

A person who has a bad flight delay and righteously insults the airline staff.

A person who is a single parent of two kids who is consistently late to morning meetings for weeks and months.

Leadership in these instances means to empathise and show sincere care AND to call out behaviours that are not acceptable.

✨ Summary

In my view, a healthy degree of empathy means to accurately sense another people’s emotions and situations *without* getting drawn into them. We keep a healthy distance.

This allows us to accomplish two very important things at the same time:

1. We are able to agree that someone’s experience is true for them.

2. We are able to disagree and still address factual bad behaviours.

We don’t give people a free pass based on sympathy. We address what needs to be addressed,

with the right amount of empathy and care. It’s a critical skill.

In what situations might you get drawn into the sympathy trap? How do you guard yourself from excusing inexcusable behaviours?