Empathy at Work: Choosing How We Relate to Other Women

To the women out there,

To the women who make a decision every single day to be negative at work,
To the women who expect others to listen to their constant complaints,
To the women who gossip about other colleagues,
To the women who judge one another,
To the women who are short, disrespectful, and punishing,
To the women with unwell intentions,
To the women who are bullies,
To the women who won’t stand up for what’s right… and wrong,
To the women who have double standards,
To the women who feel entitled,
To the women who betray each other,
To the women who don’t want to make an effort to listen and support,
To the women who are struggling to get along with colleagues:

Why the drama?

Have we lost our sense of camaraderie?
Have we forgotten that as women, our biggest strength is empathy at work?
Have we lost confidence in the value of relationships?
Have we become so selfish that we won’t take the time to listen and to make another woman feel valued?
Have we become so ignorant that acknowledgement costs an effort?
Have we let our life become so bitter that we can’t see any light?
Has our overconfidence made us falsely believe we can reach success without relationships?
Have our sense of entitlement left us helpless and unhappy?

To the women I know can care and respect:

The time has come for you to take a minute to reflect on your relationships and the people around you. What is it like to be around you?

Based on the immeasurable collective experience of all the women I am around, it is really hard to be a woman. Managing emotions being the top difficulty.

Inside our tough facade, each and every one of us is struggling with an avalanche of emotions. It’s not only you! The busy life has left us with no time to wrap our minds around variability of our feelings and emotions. Only responding to them as they come.
We pour our negativity, insecurities, and confusion on people around us when in truth the only remedy is to reflect and absorb those feelings.

When we are feeling emotional, somehow we expect others to understand—but when it happens to women around us, we are on the expressway to judgments. Often the best solution to negativity and irrational behavior is understanding and support. And the catalyst for those two is empathy at work, something we women carry in our genes.

It often surprises me that it is the elderly and the wise who spur drama. I can imagine and understand how frustrating it may be to work with the youth who come with their own “different” generational qualities, but what happened to wisdom and everything that comes with it: understanding, sharing learned lessons, encouraging patience, and perseverance?

It also surprises me when the younger generation becomes unaccepting, taking for granted the fact that those lessons were learned from years and years of experience—unattainable otherwise!

For the women who are struggling to get along, reflect on what it’s like to be around you!

Don’t forget the power of relationships.

And the value of empathy.  

Empathy at work—pass it on!