Resolving conflict, effectively leading and motivating a team, and building trust all start with the Core Skills of empathic communication. When we practice the Core Skills, the ingredients of empathic communication appear.

Here are the Ingredients of empathic communication and the core skills that create them.

A pot with a spoon and ingredient words falling into it: labeled emotions, managed emotions, respect, presence, curiosity, consideration, clarity, collaboration.

Core Skills that create Labeled Emotions:

  • Imagining and guessing what they are feeling
  • Noticing their body language, word choice, tone of voice
  • Understanding our own emotions

Core Skills that create Managed Emotions:

  • Catching our reactions
  • Listening without getting defensive
  • Shifting our strong emotions

Core Skills that create Respect:

  • Treating their perspective and emotions as their truth
  • Challenging our judgments about them
  • Checking in about next steps

Core Skills that create Presence:

  • Giving them our full attention
  • Listening with our full selves
  • Holding space for their emotions

Core Skills that create Curiosity:

  • Trying to understand their perspective
  • Choosing open body language
  • Challenging our assumptions and beliefs

Core Skills that create Consideration:

  • Taking time to process
  • Asking questions instead of assuming
  • Choosing our words thoughtfully

Core Skills that create Clarity:

  • Reflecting back their experiences and emotions
  • Asking for specific and doable changes
  • Identifying next steps

Core Skills that create Collaboration:

  • Keeping both people’s needs in mind
  • Understanding there are several potential solutions
  • Being open to other ideas

It takes practice

Like all emotion skills, empathic communication skills need to be practiced. The ways you think, listen, and speak are habits you can change, but it takes some effort.

In order to strengthen empathic communication skills, you will need three things:

  1. A commitment to practicing regularly
    • Pick one skill and try it for a week or two. You could write it on a post-it and stick it somewhere you’ll see it every day.
  2. A willingness to work through potential discomfort while…
    • Noticing and managing your emotions
    • Holding space for other people’s emotions
    • Trying out new ways of thinking, listening, and speaking
    • Feeling guilt or shame, especially in conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion, or belonging
  3. A willingness to try, make mistakes, and learn
    • When first starting, it is hard to stop impulses to interrupt, help, and blame. If you can accept that you are going to slip up and keep trying anyway, empathic communication skills will grow a lot faster.
    • Making mistakes is part of being human. It’s how you learn and grow that matters.