What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
Empathy should play a role in everyone's life. Specifically for me, I see it's value in friendships, relationships, with family, with coworkers, in how I view politics - essentially any part of my life that deals with humans, which is nearly every part. More specifically, it has helped me be a better teammate at work by allowing me to connect with my teammates on a personal level, which helps us work together better on work projects. Admittedly, my personality tends more toward cognitive empathy than emotional empathy, but I am always working toward balancing the two to manifest more compassionate empathy.
How does empathy help you build better software?
You have to have empathy for your users to build good software. You have to be able to put yourself in their shoes with every UX decision to ensure your product is going to solve their problems and be good for them to use.
Why is empathy important for working on a team?
Empathy on a team enables you to 1) get to know your teammates better, forming closer bonds, which makes working together more enjoyable and 2) it helps form a more cohesive team and team goals when you're able to understand each other's point of view.
Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
There is one person that I mentor at work who is essentially doing the job I was doing two years ago. Because I had done that same job, I knew and understood the pain points of the job and was able to proactively bring these up with my mentee so that we could talk through potential solutions together. The fact that I could empathize with my teammate on these pain points helped her know that I understood how she was feeling and made her more open to the discussion, knowing that I wouldn't think she was just being a complainer.
When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
My personality leans more on the rational/logical side rather than the emotional side, so it can be hard for me to be empathetic when I see someone reacting overly emotionally to a problem, especially when they have made no efforts to solve their problem. In these scenarios, I can have more empathy by remembering my own situations where I've had a strong emotional response and thinking about how I wanted someone to respond to me in those moments (usually just want someone to listen and not instantly try to solve my problem).