> Usually a person with good empathy can pick up on social spectral disorders after some time and factor for this in their communications capabilities. This is often not a hard barrier.
There is no such thing as a perfect person who can do these things perfectly. There is such a thing as an imperfect person who BELIEVES they can.
It takes two to tango, and it takes a minimum of two to communicate.
Just this morning I had a quick discussion with a woman who asked me a question. When I responded with an explanation she realized I misunderstood (her question was meant to clarify an earlier statement of mine) and clarified, at which point I realized I read it more negatively than she intended. I acknowledged it and we both moved on.
Neither of us is super awesome or sucks, we're just two people trying to get through the day. We get along relatively well and this interaction neither diminishes nor exemplifies either of us. It's simply the human condition.
Acting as if you, by yourself, can be the sole arbiter of good, successful communication, is exactly why people often hate "people managers".
> If a person commits to an action that is potentially harmful they must be halted and corrected even at cost of some minor embarrassment. If that person then attempts that harmful action again they should be severely counseled. The harshness of the words should reflect the severity of the failure. Empathy doesn’t mean agreement or kindness which are akin to sympathy.
I don't agree with this either.
The big secret people don't want to acknowledge in terms of "people skills" is that if you can't get along with people who are significantly different than you, you don't actually have great people skills. It's easy to get along with people like yourself.
Time and time again I've seen a "people person" complain about someone else not having people skills and being difficult to work with.
What managers in particular need to understand is that they work with people all day, which is malleable. You can walk into a room and get what you want through sheer charisma and willpower. But Engineers work with reality. No amount of charisma and willpower will fix that bug, or keep that bridge from collapsing.
The result of this is a fundamental difference in values and worldview. The good managers recognize this and don't mentally accuse an engineer of being on the spectrum (and treating them differently as a result) and/or being difficult to work with because they don't appreciate their charisma over reality.
The real "secret" is to simply accept people for who they are. If that Engineer doesn't appreciate your charisma as much as you think they should, accept that they're trying to do a good job in their world and don't hold them in a negative light as a result. And don't try to manipulate them either, acceptance is not manipulation.
As for your specific example, calling people out in front of others is exactly what you DO NOT do. The better approach is to let it be unless it's bad enough that it needs to be dealt with. I say this because it allows the other person to approach the offender themselves. If you're REALLY worried about it, talk to the person it happened to and see how they feel. encourage them to approach the offender. If they're not the personality type to do that (dislikes confrontation) THEN perhaps you can facilitate that conversation.
In my 24 years in this industry I've only ever had a single person who did not apologize profusely when approached by me about something they said or how they were acting towards me. The typical response is roughly "I'm sorry, here's what I meant or what I was trying to do".
People don't set out to hurt others feelings. Oftentimes it's an accident because they're valuing something else, or they're in the heat of the moment. Communicate with them and allow them to communicate and you can often times create a better environment for everyone.
But calling them out in front of everyone? Not a good idea.