Eleven Major Factors of Leadership: 8

Sympathy and Understanding

Here we are back again with Six Minutes to Success and were still on the eleven
characteristics of great leadership by Napoleon Hill. Now weve covered seven.
Number eight is Sympathy and Understanding. In other words youve got to be
sympathetic toward your people and you have to understand them.

Now does that mean that you have to get caught up in their melodrama, that youve
got to get emotionally caught up? Im going to tell you something. Psychiatrists that get
emotionally caught up in the melodrama of the patientthey lose. You know the rate
of suicide amongst psychiatrists is pretty high. Why? Because they get caught up in the
other persons problem. That is not what Hill is talking about. Hes talking about
understanding where the other person is coming from. Understand, because its only
when you do that that you can lead them.

See, a person will not even share their problems with you until they feel youve got a
solution to their problem. Youve got to be sympathetic, and youve got to understand
them. Youve got to know where theyre coming from. Youve got to get in their mind
and see the world through their eyes.

A number of years ago, Earl Nightingale made a recording and he called it Empathy
Ego Balance It was in his series called Great Ideas in Selling. Empathy Ego Balance
youve got to have a strong ego to keep going; but youve also have to have enough
empathy. Youve got to get into the other persons mind and see the world from where
they see it. Understand their predicament, understand where theyre coming from.
Thats the only way youre ever going to lead them.

Now think about that for a few minutes. You work around people. It may be somebody
in your own family, it may be somebody at work. You may not be the leader, but you
can be the leader of yourself. Sit down and ask yourself, Do I understand where
theyre coming from? Do I really understand? Start asking some questions and listen
carefully and youll start to understand.

Spend four or five minutes thinking about a few people that youre around all the time.
Are you sympathetic to their situation? Dont get caught up in it. This is strictly an
intellectual exercise, not an emotional exercise. Do you understand where they are
coming from? That should keep you thinking for the next four or five minutes. This is Bob
Proctor. Thank you.