What would you call a business attribute that leads to successful long-term leadership, high retention, positive team environments, and greater job performance?
Research says it is empathy, which makes it a critical path to success. Yet excessive empathy can hinder decision-making, while an excessive focus on execution can hurt employees. As Korn Ferry's Dennis Carey put it in “Are Empathetic CEOs Losing Empathy?”, empathy is highly correlated with how people perceive leaders, yet it can be hard for leaders to convey.
My view: many people still have a skewed perception of what empathy is, and of how to measure it.
Born with it, or learned?
I later asked my network whether empathy is an innate trait or a skill that can be learned. The answers split roughly two-thirds to one-third. Anecdotal, but telling: leaders disagree on whether empathy can be developed at all, which may be why so few organizations deliberately build it.
Adapted from LinkedIn posts on January 18, 2024 and March 28, 2024.