What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
Empathy is such a strange concept because it comes very naturally to some people and not very naturally to others. While growing up people always called me the nice girl so I would like to think, and even thought, that meant I was a pretty empathetic person. However, I've come to realize that empathy and kindness are not the same thing. It is not as difficult to be kind as it is to be empathetic, and while I do not have to work at all to be kind it has taken some practice for me to truly empathize with other peoples pain. It wasn't until I was in college I began to realize that to build strong relationships it is necessary to become selflessly immersed in another persons feelings to truly be empathetic, and that's when I began to open up to other people as well as listen and care more deeply.
How does empathy help you build software?
It is important to be able to understand what the user expects from the program. To be able to place yourself in their shoes and see it from their perspective, to feel what they are feeling while using the software. Once you understand the user, you can improve the software to be its absolute best. It is also possible that the user will feel in sync with your empathy towards them, and therefore return the empathy by choosing your software over others who do not consider empathy to be as important.
Why is empathy important for working on a team?
Achieving a highly functional team is all about listening and understanding others point of view. Without empathy, there is likely to be more conflict among team members and less success for the team as a whole. The overall product of the team will not be as good if the team is fighting and not working together. Since conflicting viewpoints is very likely on a team, it is important to have the ability to view something from someone elses shoes. It is also possible that a quiter person will not speak their opinion because they are afraid the other team members will ridicule them. If that person feels that their team members are empathetic, they are more likely to speak their mind without fear of being attacked by their team members.
Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
During college I worked as a student assistant for a community service center at my university. The jobs was transporting volunteer students to schools around my university using the university vans. One time one of my colleagues had to study for a midterm and no one else would pick up her shift. I could tell she was under a lot of pressure and stress and I had worked all day and the last thing I personally wanted was to stay longer. However, I couldn't stand how upset she seems so I offered to cover her shift. Afterwards she was so thankful and friendly towards me, and it made me feel like we had become closer as friends and colleagues.
When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings?
How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios? When someone has repeatedly been rude and dispresctful to me or someone else I can rarely bring myself to even be around them. The only way I think I could improve this skill would be to talk with a supervisor and other co-workers because I am not good at confrontation. I think improving my self esteem would help my confidence in confrontation as well as improving my communication skills to ask other people for help with the problem if need be.