Empathy in Leadership Gets Results
Leaders who get results practice empathy in leadership. It is the skill of understanding what others need to do their best work — and using that understanding to improve communication, ownership, and performance.
It’s not about being “nice,” agreeing with everyone, or lowering standards. It’s less about emotion and more about being practical and tactical in your relationships so people can perform at their best.
Empathy helps leaders raise standards without creating fear, defensiveness, or disengagement. As work becomes more complex and teams become more diverse, empathy becomes even more valuable — especially for leaders navigating shifting expectations from younger talent. (You might also like: Empathy and Leadership: What Gen Z Gets Right.)
Why Empathy in Leadership Is Foundational to Managing Others
Leaders don’t manage work. They manage people doing work. Without empathy, leaders often miss what matters most:
- early warning signs before small issues become big ones
- unspoken barriers that slow performance
- misalignment that creates friction, rework, and resistance
- disengagement that reduces effort and lowers results
Empathy is also a key element of psychological safety. Simply put, people speak up sooner when they trust they’ll be heard with respect.
Furthermore, leadership research consistently points to the costs of dismissing empathy — including lower morale, retention issues, burnout, and leaders being perceived as inaccessible or out of touch.
What Empathy and Managing Others Looks Like in Practice
Empathetic leaders:
- ask questions before jumping to solutions
- listen for what isn’t being said and respectfully draw out issues
- adapt communication to the person and the moment
- balance accountability with respect
- gather better information because people trust them with the truth
- are perceived as more approachable and easier to work with
Teams respond by speaking up more, surfacing problems earlier, taking greater ownership, and treating feedback as a normal (and productive) daily habit. These are the characteristics of high-performing teams.
Why Empathy Is Leverage, Not Extra Work
Empathy helps leaders solve the right problems sooner — and prevents avoidable friction later. It reduces defensiveness, rework, and disengagement, making collaboration easier rather than slower. It also increases support for your ideas and initiatives because people feel included, respected, and considered.
It doesn’t have to be touchy-feely. It has to be respectful, professional, and intentional.
Think about the best boss you ever had — chances are, they were empathetic with you.
Who Empathy in Leadership Is For
This skill is especially important if you’re managing a diverse team (including Gen Z), dealing with recurring “people issues,” feeling stuck between being liked and being effective, or noticing tension, silence, disengagement, or high turnover. It’s also useful if you’ve ever been told you seem “unapproachable,” hard to read, or difficult to work with — even when your intentions are good.
Go Deeper on Empathy in Leadership
- Read the in-depth guide: Empathy in Leadership: Why It Matters and How to Practice It
- Related: What Is Psychological Safety at Work and How Does It Improve Performance?
- Explore practical articles and tools: Empathy and Managing Others
Empathy and Managing Others is one skill in a larger leadership system.
High-performing, motivated teams are built through a combination of foundational and application skills. Each skill in this framework reinforces the others.
Foundational Skills
Application Skills
- Alignment and Effective One-on-One Meetings
- Decision Making Under Pressure
- Motivation and a Culture of Performance
This is skill #2 of 6 in the Leadership Framework
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