Genuiness, Unconditional Positive Regard, and Empathy

Human connection...what drives it to happen? People tend to be drawn toward genuine people. This starts with simple interactions that eventually leads to other's judgement of someone as real or fake. One way to succeed at this is to be present in the conversations, or in the spaces that you share with others. There are many ways to be present, but one of the best ways can be summed up as attending to someone; having your full attention on them, taking in their words, body language, and their over all mood. This practice of attending can help you better interpret and see how to interact with them more effectively.  This can also be the basis of character style flexing to better suit corroboration with individuals of a group. 

As we talked about in my HR group, I believe that genuiness is the basis of the other two principles that Carl Rogers researched as important for a leader to practice in regard to their followers. Genuiness is the foundation for Unconditional Positive Regard to grow between two people. I can say this confidently based on experience, because if you are real with someone and you are showing that you are interested in how they feel and how their day is going, they are more likely to hold you in a positive light in their life. They feel connected to a real person, rather than someone that doesn't seem like the care that much about their life, or the fact that your presence is in their lives. 

With this in mind, consider empathy. Empathy is the ability to connect with people through emotional refection. In many ways empathy is best conveyed without the presence of words but just the attention and interaction of simply being in a space, not just physically, but mainly emotionally. In this way you can see how empathy has a foundation of being genuine and building an unconditional positive regard.