Human Power: Empathy, Vision and Purpose

There is nothing more powerful than human power – the power to create, the power to get knowledge, the power to feel, the power to build relationships, motivate, drive and to lead. This power creates differences in the world. 

Institutions are run with people and driven by leadership. The environment, the culture, the quality of outcome, workplace relationships are created by leaders. Leaders are responsible for the people, their wellbeing, their growth, their performance and their family. They are not only in charge of jobs, they are in charge of human beings, those who feel, who think, who aspire, who dream and strive to achieve. To understand the people, the leaders should be able to feel for the people, able to empathise and give everybody the platform to perform or deliver as per the capacity and capability of each individual, thus influencing the performance. 

“Empathy is like universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble,” said Simon Baron Cohen, Professor of Development Psychology, University of Cambridge.

And according to a US-based psychologist: “Empathy is one of the five key components of Emotional Intelligence, the vital leadership skill. It develops through three stages: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and compassionate empathy.”

Cognitive Empathy relates to understanding others, Emotional Empathy relates to sharing feelings of others and Compassionate Empathy relates to not only understanding and sharing but taking effective measures to alleviate the problem. The power of empathy makes you a popular and compassionate leader and enables you to drive a large group to the levels of excellence.

I had studied the impact of various behavioural skills in four different major software industries way back in 2007. And the results showed that leadership and humanity have the greatest impact on workplaces when it comes to managing people, and to establish a distinct workplace culture, one that is appreciated by one and all. 

A clear and strong and powerful vision is translated into reality with the effort and support of human power and it grows fast. It connects people to contribute, to experiment and to realise the success of sharing. A strong perception with perfect imagination and wisdom based on previous statistics or behavioral qualitative changes show the light to build the path to achievement. A strong vision attracts resources, both physical and intellectual and trust to rely.

Beny Esco speaks about individual vision where you set your own vision and plan your life fearlessly, because you are a wonderful creator. 

Helen Keller said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” 

Vision is a fearless motivation, it is the energy to sail on and to drive ahead, it is power to grow confidently.

The purpose of life is to lead a happy and meaningful one and being happy is the purpose and the right of every human being. However, “meaningful” is sometimes confusing. It is sometimes understood as something that is meaningful to the individual, sometimes it is said to be something that is meaningful to family or society or nation or to the world. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, create the purpose for your life, realise that purpose and move ahead. Make the purpose your life to live, build the inner strength to do anything to achieve it and keep working on it. It is created out of deep despair and that despair burns to excel.

The power of a human to achieve anything, to create anything, is enormous, and it needs determination and perseverance to walk, run and fly high.

The writer is pro-vice-chancellor, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar.

This article is an excerpt from a blog written by the author.