In an ideal world, everyone would be willing to Walk a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes demonstrating a Habit of Awareness of Others in efforts to create a flourishing community. However, the reality is that most of us are more interested in our own perspective and having our own opinions supported than we are at embracing one of the characteristics of effective leadership and that is genuine empathy. Today, as I browsed social media, I was vividly reminded of how truly rare it is to encounter leaders who are willing to a make such wise investments in their organization.

Today, I read a social media post about a school district in Maryland, who in an attempt to navigate what a school day might look like in the midst of a pandemic, asked key stakeholders to spend a portion of their day living out the plans being discussed in meetings. To Walk a Mile in Someone’s Else’s Shoes becomes a reality when a decision-maker is asked to ride the bus, attend classes, and experience an entire school day wearing a mask inside a classroom full of their peers. One suggestion even offered to add details to each scenario such as having, asthma, a cold, or facial blemishes. Imagine how the discussions in those meetings might evolve with an empathic understanding of what is being asked of teachers and students!

Although I’ve previously discussed the idea of going the extra mile as we see in Matthew 5 of Scripture in the context of hospitality (click here for that topic), I also see applications to not only going the extra mile, but what if we traveled that second mile in Someone Else’s Shoes? Conducting a quick search on the phrase actually led me, surprisingly, to the lyrics of an Elvis Presley song, one I was unfamiliar with, but reading the words I found it applicable to our topic here. Investigating a little deeper, I was steered to this explanation on the grammarist, “The admonition to Walk a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes means before judging someone, you must understand his experiences, challenges, thought processes, etc.”

In the discipline of sport management at Union when discussing leadership strategies, I’ve offered a few examples where leaders demonstrate a transformational approach by making a choice to Walk a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes. In one example, an intercollegiate athletic director chose to drive outside of town on a football Saturday so that he could attempt to mirror what fans underwent on their visit to the stadium. A desire to solve an issue with disruptive behavior inside the stadium opened his eyes to see problems initiated on the outside before they ever arrived on campus. Another example has an administrator shadowing student-athletes on a day with an away game in order to comprehend the time issues of balancing academics, athletics, travel logistics, and late-night returns. One last attempt to underscore the importance of empathy and understanding one’s organization is to have students view episodes of the television show Undercover Boss, where executives go inside their own companies in efforts to discover ways to improve.

Regardless of one’s rank in an organization, the influence one might have on others, or one’s work environment, would it not be refreshing to know that leaders, especially the decision-makers, were willing to Walk a Mile in Your Shoes? More on this topic to come when I share about Henry Cloud’s The Listening Tour; however, in the meantime, please feel free to share your comments about empathy in the area below.

References:

Grammarist. (2009-2014). Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Retrieved from https://grammarist.com/phrase/walk-a-mile-in-someone-elses-shoes/