My Inc.com column is about purpose and power but today it’s about empathy and compassion and how we, as business leaders, visionaries, and entrepreneurs, must model these values to our youth. Without true empathy and compassion, we can never find our purpose, and can never wield true power worth having.
Journalist J.D. Gallop, of FLORIDA TODAY recently reported the death of a disabled man, Jamel Dunn, who drowned in Cocoa, Florida, a small town of fewer than 20,000 residents. He died in real time, while several unidentified teens between the ages of 14 and 16, laughed, mocked him, and video-recorded his drowning in a pond. They then posted it on social media, doing nothing to help him. The authorities don’t think they will be charged with a crime because they were not actively involved in the death.
This story breaks my heart, not just because of what it says about these young teenagers who should have known better. It breaks my heart because of what it says about us as a society. It doesn’t matter if 10 out of 10 people reading this think, “I would have saved that man” or “I know my kids would have saved him.” It doesn’t matter if we each know 100 stories of people acting humanely or heroically in difficult situations. If we can’t say that about each and every one of us, no matter our socio-economic, political, religious or educational background, then we cannot own the statement with pride about ourselves.
We are all responsible because we have a choice to turn our backs or be leaders who can model to all Americans and the world that we care about others. We are a country of individuals who must be better than we are at this moment.
We all know that current events are increasingly saturated with the questionable behavior and dubious choices of people in power. Every day citizens are encouraged to feel disconnected from and threatened by entire populations of fellow humans. But modeling compassion and empathy comes from each one of us. It is time we all own the true leaders and influencers inside ourselves.
Our youth, whether they realize it or not, are influenced by the actions and words of our leaders. If we see that titled leadership does not reflect our values, then we must become leaders and model those values ourselves. As small business owners, entrepreneurs, and CEOs, it is up to us to talk the talk and walk the walk. We have more influence than we realize. Nothing less is at stake than the consciousness of a generation growing up in an environment that makes it okay to refuse a helping hand to a stranger in need. The stranger doesn’t need to actually be drowning as Jamel was. The stranger might be a father of three in Montana who was just diagnosed with MS, or a mother who discovers she has a lump in her breast, or an anonymous motorist in a bad car accident. It may be an elderly woman having trouble carrying groceries to her car. Modeling compassion begins with how we interact with others, including those whose values and perspectives differ from ours.
Here are three simple things we can do every day to change the direction of our cultural ethos and refocus our collective voice to cultivate empathy and compassion.
1. Create a program at work that honors your team members when they help people in any way outside of work.
Demonstrate for them that engaging with people outside of their comfort zone is as important a value as their productivity in the work place. What you’ll find is that their productivity will increase because they will be filled with more purpose.
2. Spend five minutes a day actively considering the perspective of someone with whom you normally don’t agree.
You don’t need to agree with it, you don’t need to own it, but for 5 minutes each day sit with a perspective that is not yours and attempt to feel it. The concerns, the fear, the hope that might exist within that perspective for the person who has it.
3. Change how you interact online.
Use this mantra in social media, when discussing issues of today and when educating our youth: “Compassion and empathy create strong communities, successful businesses, and a better world.” Then have discussions with your kids about what that means, and how they can find ways of showing compassion and empathy to others in the family, in the neighborhood, on the playground, and at school.
It is time for all of us to own our influence and take a stand.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.