3 Myths About Leadership And Empathy

Empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Research has conclusively shown that empathy is a critical element for leaders to build effective teams, establish healthy relationships, and engage in clear communication. It should come as no surprise then that empathy is the cornerstone of a leader’s effectiveness in keeping stakeholders confident, employees engaged, and customers loyal.

Healthy empathy from a leader enables them to take the time to learn about other’s perspectives, challenges, and goals so they can make better decisions for the greater good. The art of empathy requires leaders to pay attention to other’s needs without sacrificing their own needs. 

Unfortunately, empathy is often misunderstood, which can negatively impact the perceived importance and effort leaders place on demonstrating this important skill.

3 Leadership Myths About Empathy

Myth #1: The more empathy the better.

All leaders have a baseline responsibility to be respectful, inclusive, and kind in their daily interactions with others. Just like all strengths and habits, there are negative consequences with expressing too much or the wrong type of empathy. The best leaders find a balance of building strong relationships and delivering results.

Leaders have to constantly make tough decisions for their organizations to keep up with the rapid pace of change and to meet stakeholder demands. Overly empathic leaders can lose the ability to know what they want or need to do in service of the greater organizational good. Empathy doesn’t serve organizations, teams, or employees when it gets in the way of leaders making necessary tough decisions. 

Paul Bloom shares in his book, Against Empathy, that empathy does have the power to hurt judgment and can lead to poor decision-making in business. Bloom says, “business leaders need to be able to balance what is best for the whole organization with being kind and considerate to individual employees.” Too much focus on empathy can leave leaders feeling emotionally drained and hurt their ability to be effective in their role.

Myth #2: Empathy makes it difficult to hold people accountable.

Effective leadership requires understanding other’s needs without sacrificing the ability to hold employees accountable. As the workforce continues to transition from the impacts of the global pandemic, this balance can be quite a daunting task for even the most seasoned leaders. 

Leaders that demonstrate healthy empathy understand that accountability is necessary for team members to have high levels of motivation, mutual trust, and performance. The best leaders understand that they cannot demonstrate healthy empathy unless there is accountability. A leader demonstrates empathy through accountability in the following ways.

Accountability Builds Team Trust

When team members deliver on commitments, trust is built. Clear accountability allows people to count on each other, whether that means meeting deadlines or fulfilling duties.

Accountability Creates Clear Expectations

With the increase in virtual work and matrixed reporting relationships, creating clear expectations for employees has become a growing challenge for managers. Gallup’s research shows that setting clear expectations is the most foundational element for employee engagement. Having clear expectations provides employees the benefits of clarity, focus, and increased performance. 

Accountability Enables Accomplishment

For an employee to truly put trust in a leader, they must believe the leader can help them and their team get the job done. Employees receive a sense of accomplishment when they have worked towards and reached their goals. Have you worked on a team that lacked accountability? If the answer is yes, you probably experienced some of the following repercussions:

• Low-performance levels
• Missed deadlines
• Lack of team trust
• Ongoing team conflict

Leaders that demonstrate healthy empathy understand that accountability is necessary for team members to have high levels of motivation, mutual trust, and performance. 

Myth #3: Empathy gets in the way of communicating difficult and urgent messages.

We have all seen a passionate person who convinces themselves that the end justifies the means when communicating a difficult message. This is a dangerous belief because it allows the leader to justify a poor delivery because of the perceived importance of the message. Very rarely is the difficult message so critical or urgent that it justifies not considering the dignity, emotional safety, and respect of others.

Leadership empathy is demonstrated by taking the time to ask questions before providing perspectives. The best leaders value that people have different experiences, access to information, goals, and perceptions that often lead people to establish different insights, innovations, and conclusions.

Asking questions and listening does not stop a leader from sharing their perspectives, expectations, or even directives; it just means that they choose to ask questions to understand other views and perspectives before sharing yours. There are many benefits for leading with questions which include:

• Staying in learning mode rather than judgment mode
• Creating a setting where others feel included, valued, respected, and safe 
• Uncovering insights, perspectives, and challenges before sharing your truth

Demonstrating Healthy Empathy

Debunking these 3 Leadership Myths About Empathy helps leaders demonstrate healthy empathy when making difficult decisions, which creates an environment where employees feel safe, valued, and capable of doing their best work. How do you make sure you are demonstrating healthy empathy when making important and complex decisions?

NOTE: Tony Gambill previously published this article with Forbes Leadership Strategy on 08/01/21.

Learn more about my bio, content, and services at www.clearviewleaders.com

Read more of my articles on Self-Leadership and Leading Others at my Forbes Leadership Strategy Homepage

Learn more about my book on Self-Leadership at gettingitrightbook.net

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tony Gambill is the President of ClearView Leadership, an innovative leadership and talent development consulting firm helping organizations, executives, and managers bring practical skills to Self-Leadership and Leading Others. He is the author of, Getting It Right When It Matters Most: Self-Leadership For Work & Life.