I recently developed a leadership communication seminar for a large global organization. Upon seeing that my draft program included a session on empathy, the CEO reacted, "Oh, God! We all know empathy is good, but doing all that touchy-feely stuff feels off!"
Leaders often overestimate how good they are at being empathetic. Per the 2024 State of Workplace Empathy Report: A Game Plan, “55 percent of CEOs think they lead [with] empathy at work, but only 28% of employees and 22 percent of HR share that view.” During another leadership workshop, one participant said: “I don’t feel comfortable listening to people’s feelings like a therapist. I’ve tried it with my staff; I don’t feel authentic, and it didn’t come across well.”
Empathy is a non-negotiable for leaders, and the stakes are high for a leader who fails to embrace and model it. Dismissing empathy can result in negative consequences, including a toxic workplace, low morale, poor retention and burnout. For leaders, it can result in failure to connect, inability to gather information or being perceived as inaccessible. For my participant who struggled to demonstrate empathy, his 360 feedback revealed his leadership style was “too brusque” bordering on “aggressive,” which explained in part why his staff were reluctant to share information and ideas with him.
Please select this link to read the complete article from Harvard Business Review.