Sympathy and Understanding Grow in the Trenches

Sympathy and Understanding Grow in the Trenches

Albeit years later, I remember seeing Granny's black eyes like it was yesterday. I'm a fixer, sympathy has never really been something I've done well with. That said, I'll let you guess at the emotions I was flooded with. Unless I've missed one unintentionally, we've looked at all eleven of Napoleon Hill's leadership attributes as I've challenged you with Making the Best of YOUR Bad Situations. His first (unwavering courage) and third (keen sense of justice) were pressing me to take action, but leaning into the second is exactly what prevented me from doing anything in the moment that would have kept me from truly fixing the situation; I needed to do everything in my power to maintain self-control!

Earlier in this process, I called specific attention to the stark difference between sympathy and empathy. Here's what I pulled from a Google search back then as a reminder: “Sympathy is feeling concern or compassion for someone's hardship. Empathy is the ability to truly understand and feel what another person is experiencing from their perspective.” With this being the grandmother who had played such a key role throughout my life, concern and compassion were indeed what I was feeling - both of which were pushing me to fix something. Everything I wanted to do in that moment would have only landed me in a fix.

Caregiving conflicts and the defense of vulnerable people often feel like thankless, high-stakes risks that invite institutional pushback or personal isolation, but when rooted in prior lessons of sympathy, justice, and full responsibility, they forge unshakeable relational power and cooperative influence. Making the best of these situations isn't about winning every confrontation with a system—it's about using moral advocacy as soil for deeper empathy and influence that compounds far beyond any single facility or blacklisting.

We'll get to fallout soon enough; that's more than I can build out here without veering off this emphasis of how sympathy and understanding grow in the trenches. Sympathy isn't pity—it's the disciplined choice to understand another's pain and act on it even when the cost is high. Sometimes, the initial cost is maintaining the self-control necessary to avoid taking decisive action that leads to unintended consequences (like going to jail). The true test for me in that situation was maintaining composure and working through every option we had at our disposal to systematically address and document the issues, identify resolutions the staff could take immediately to provide the care Granny needed, all while digging into every option we could find for removing them from the situation.

While there were indeed regulations dictating the care and coverage they were supposed to be providing, we still needed their cooperation (Hill's eleventh leadership attribute) - at least until we found another option. Gaining that cooperative effort was only going to happen by displaying every bit of pleasing personality (the seventh leadership attribute) I could muster. And I did that as well as I knew how, but certainly not as well as I could have. We'll look at a few steps we took in that process next, even without a title or authority to enforce compliance. My challenge for you now is to consider a conflict you've listed to this point. Think specifically about how the sympathy and understanding attributes apply. What seed of greater relational influence might (still) be hidden? What can you do to begin nurturing that seed?

The Advocacy Stand

Defending the Vulnerable Without a Title

Despite the tremendous concern and compassion I felt through so much of what we were attempting to work through with the team being paid (heavily) to care for Granny, I maintained all the self-control I could muster with hopes of displaying enough of a pleasing personality to earn at least adequate cooperation. That said, it didn't work. The care was far from adequate - and even farther from actually compliant with the governmental regulations they should have been abiding by.

Under normal circumstances, we would have had ways of ensuring that care was indeed adequate; visibility has a direct impact on accountability in so many ways. Looking back on March 2020 and the months that followed, I can't think of anything that could be considered “normal circumstances.” When in-person visits were ruled out, we had two options: hope that Granny would receive the care she deserved (care that was being paid for) and schedule virtual visits with her as often as we possibly could.

Hope is never a strategy. And since we weren't experiencing anything close to “adequate” even when we could be in the building on a daily basis, hoping for better when we couldn't would have been just plain dumb.

The virtual visit option brought its own challenges. First, think about what it would have been like early in the pandemic trying to have a FaceTime conversation with someone in the 70s who had only ever used a landline. Now, add 25 years to that age and throw in very poor hearing for good measure. Telephone conversations were tough, this was almost impossible. And that was the easy part. Remember the “we couldn't hire any more staff if we wanted to” comment? The facility maintained bare-bones coverage to skate by the regulation, and that was before anyone on shift needed to be involved in facilitating a virtual meeting between a resident and a family member. I didn't keep notes on it, but I think saying we were able to have one per week would be an exaggeration.

Before I go on, let me be very clear about something: I've been very intentional here about withholding names. It's not about that. My point with every example I've shared has been to give you a picture of scenarios I've experienced for the explicit purpose of thinking about similar situations you've been through so you can look for your seeds to equal or greater benefit. I clearly still have a sore ass about a few of mine, and I'll bet you feel the exact same way about some of yours. If that's not the case, hook me up with whatever you're taking…

All that said, let's get back to what followed. About a month into that mess, trying repeatedly to schedule time to see Granny virtually (which she never really understood), I saw the organization share a photo on social media boasting about how connected the residents were with their families. It showed a staff member assisting with a Zoom call, with, low and behold, Granny sitting by herself in the background. What a great opportunity that post provided for me to comment, saying that I'd been trying to schedule a call just like the one pictured with the lady in the background for more than a week but couldn't get a response. While my outreach hadn't elicited a response, that comment sure did! Someone replied, effectively dismissing me. I'll spare you the details, but that didn't go as well as they had hoped.

I wasn't the primary point of contact; that was my mom. I had zero authority to give direction to anyone in that organization. And I didn't have a prominent role in a big company that was in bed with that organization. But I was very willing to take a stand to advocate for someone who couldn't do it for themselves. Defending the vulnerable without a title isn't easy, and it often carries a cost - which we'll work through next - but not doing it was never an option.

I realize your bad situations won't be the same as mine. Some will be better and some will likely be much worse. Regardless, I'll continue to challenge you to dig deep for every seed you can find in each one. Whatever emotion I just stirred in you with this, use it to identify a current pattern where someone vulnerable needs a stronger voice, in your personal or professional life. Then commit to one clear, values-based first step you can take. In complete transparency, the thing that's helped me learn to do this, more than anything I can take credit for personally, has been association with and mentorship from many strong leaders who have helped me grow.

The Cost of Standing

Blacklisting and Isolation

After the sit-down with the organization's CEO and nursing director, firmly (but still appropriately) calling bullshit on the social media post, and having routine direct conversations about our expectations for how Granny was cared for - as often as we could get someone to actually answer the phone - every possibility of a positive or collaborative relationship with that group was essentially gone. The biggest lesson I pulled from that has been one that's carried over to every relationship I've had or seen, personal or professional. If someone steps away from the relationship (or scraps it completely) when their shortcomings are pointed out, especially in a private or one-on-one setting, it wasn't much of a relationship to begin with. Make no mistake, this isn't a free pass for airing dirty laundry publicly and expecting no recourse; I won't play very nicely with anyone who chooses that path either. But severing ties with someone having a conversation about basic accountability points to some significant issues. And it exposes what those so-called relationships were based on to begin with.

I could share all kinds of crazy experiences Cindy and I have seen from that, immediately and still today. But I won't. What I will do is challenge you to think through the times you've been the one who had to have the tough conversation and the person on the other end chose not to receive any of it. What was the cost? Was the relationship strained? Did it end completely? Were you isolated from certain people who were connected with both of you previously? Don't misunderstand me here: I've seen this happen in professional situations nearly as often as I've seen in personal ones. And I'm sure you have as well.

Several years ago while coaching a department manager, we were routinely looking at issues with one of their team members. This team member had experienced some rough times personally and this manager had been something of a counselor for them through most of it. They'd built a solid friendship in that time, or at least that's how the manager saw it. All said, the team member's performance would have had to improve dramatically to be mediocre and none of the issues were tied to the capability; each was a daily choice. In the Advantage-series revision of The Values Advantage and in the Values Optimization Implementation Guide, Cindy and I detail how not addressing a choice to live up to a value is in fact showing approval for that behavior. My recurring feedback to that manager was that he was actually doing a disservice to that particular team member, as well as the rest of his team, by not addressing the failure to meet expectations.

All too often, the folks I make suggestions like that hear me advocating harsh disciplinary action, up to and including termination. I won't say that's never the case because some things absolutely warrant it, but those are definitely the exception and never the rule. Avoiding the conversation is never an option IF we hope to maintain respect as leaders - and that often carries a cost.

The manager finally had the conversation, albeit far too late to change the patterns that had become embedded and only after everyone involved was completely fed up. It wasn't received well at all. The team member lashed out at the manager, leaving that manager feeling like they had alienated the “friendship.” I pointed out that the team member continuing to put this manager in that position was evidence that the friendship had only ever gone one way.

Definiteness of decision, be it in caregiving battles or holding someone accountable in any scenario, can require being willing to burn the ships on what we see as solid relationships. We cannot remain silent simply because it's convenient. When the relationship is real, rather than a facade based on one party receiving what they need without any accountability in return, these moments forge an unshakeable alignment between values and action. Throughout Leveraging Leadership Growth, I pointed to things I learned from Terry Ward and Rod Little. Likely more than every other mentor combined, those two provided me with examples of being willing to accept the cost of standing when it wasn't convenient or comfortable.

Moving forward, we'll dig into how doing exactly that hones cooperation through conflict. Before that, though, think about one area where speaking up for the vulnerable, or simply addressing an issue that's long past needing addressed, still feels costly. Identify the step you will take within the next week toward principled action.