Embracing Empathy: Why the Big Three Types of Strategic Empathy Bring Hard Results

Steve Payne, Vice Chair of Consulting for Ernst & Young Americas said, “Empathy is not only a “nice to have”, but the glue and accelerant for business transformation in the next era of business.” This quote comes from a 2021 E&Y Survey showing how empathy can raise profit, productivity, creativity, trust, and collaboration in an organization, and suggests that empathy may be the “secret sauce” for organizational success. Let’s be real: this isn’t just someone’s opinion. It’s from a survey from an internationally known Big Four consulting group. Thought Leaders like Simon Sinek and Seth Godin and Brené Brown have been espousing empathy’s power in leadership for over a decade. It’s a predictor of leadership success, a means to understand people and processes for better profit, productivity, and innovation, and a hidden leadership superpower, but somehow it still doesn’t get the respect and implementation it deserves. Why not?

Part of the problem is that most people still don’t understand what it is. Empathy has an undeserved reputation for being soft and creating leaders that are pushovers or people-pleasers. Many believe it’s about feelings, all puppies and rainbows, and worry that too much empathy (if that’s even a thing) might make them look submissive or weak-willed. These are myths, and nothing could be further from the truth.  While the “I feel what you feel” kind of empathy is certainly the most well-known type of empathy, there have been 43 different kinds of empathy throughout its study, and not all of them relate to feelings.  At its heart empathy isn’t about feelings, it’s about taking the perspective of the other person to create understanding.  That understanding is the difference between a good leader and a great one.

Specifically, there are three kinds of empathy that are must-have skills for leaders: emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and self-empathy.  And the word ‘skill’ is used purposefully here.  While empathy has some biological basis, there are also parts that anyone can learn and practice just like typing, or playing basketball, or acquiring the skills to be an exemplary leader. It just takes time and a willingness to do things differently, which is to say, it takes strategic vision and courage.  Let’s start by understanding the Big Three Strategic kinds of empathy:

Emotional Empathy  

This is the “I feel what you feel” kind of empathy and helps humans understand one another on a person-to-person level.  It’s powerful, but on its own it can be uncontrolled and bring too much heart to situations.  It can also create empathy fatigue and burnout when it’s used too much.  Emotional empathy works better in one-on-one situations than it does for groups of people.  That’s why we react differently to the news when one little girl has fallen down a well than we do when we see large numbers of war casualties. They’re both terrible things, but the human mind can focus on a single person easier than on large faceless groups. Emotional empathy is a powerful asset, but leaders can’t always lead with the heart.  Sometimes we need to lead the heart with the head, but you can do that and still use empathy.

Cognitive Empathy 

This is the leader’s secret empathy weapon, and the kind that leaders should lean into.  This is where “I logically understand what you’re feeling/experiencing/thinking, but I’m not feeling anything”. Sometimes we lead with the heart, but more often we need to make sound business decisions for the greater good, and having the heart involved can keep us from making the best decisions or completely understanding a situation.  Cognitive empathy also keeps leaders from being too soft. Having empathy doesn’t mean not having boundaries, and cognitive empathy can help leaders make hard decisions while knowing which soft skills are the most appropriate for a situation.

Self-Empathy 

Make no mistake: this is the one that gets forgotten the most.  Many leaders are driven, intelligent, and highly self-actualizing people, but the stress of leadership can be overwhelming, and they forget to give themselves the empathy that their position demands they give others.  Leaders take on heavy responsibility and, in the process, forget that they’re human too.  It’s no surprise that those in leadership can have a 35% burnout rate and suffer from addictions and dysfunctions to a greater degree than the general population. They become unable to show themselves empathy, and how can someone possibly expect to show others empathy when they can’t show it to themselves first?

So if empathy is a skill and something worth learning and implementing, where should a leader begin?  It starts with three small changes and a daily commitment to integrating empathy as an actionable skill:

1. Take it back to kindergarten: Sometimes the easiest steps are the ones we already know, and that includes putting empathy into leadership.  If empathy is about perspective taking, then begin with the question “how would I feel/think/understand this situation if it were me?”
2. Stay critical, not caring:  When we put ourselves in another person’s position, we often place emotional value on what we think or how we perceive the situation, but that only clouds our thinking. Instead of seeing the world through their eyes, we see it through our own, and often we jump to judgement. This is ineffectual at best, and destructive at worst. This is where cognitive empathy can be the key to understanding another without placing any emotional value on the situation.  For a leader, keeping that clarity no matter the situation, is invaluable.
3. Remember that charity begins at home:  You can’t give what you haven’t got, and that includes empathy. There are so many reasons why people in leadership positions deal with high rates of burnout, substance abuse, family issues, and a lack of resiliency, but an inability to effectively use self-empathy is a big one. It’s the old adage of how you must put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else put on theirs. This isn’t being selfish; it’s understanding that you must lead yourself before you can hope to lead others.

The best part is that empathy could be the most powerful transferable skill any leader could master. Whether you’re in the board room, in society, or at home, the ability to take the perspective of the other person broadens the insight of any leader beyond what they’re able to simply see. It creates real human-to-human understanding, often without any feelings at all.

More importantly, we are steadily moving into a world of artificial intelligence and big tech where these machines are unable to take another’s perspective. Empathy is in shorter supply than ever, and as any savvy leader knows, short supply means high demand. Not only does this soft skill deliver hard results, but it may become a commodity that will separate out the forgettable leaders from the ones leaving a legacy of gold-standard leadership. The best part is that you don’t have to become someone different to integrate empathy as a skill. You only need to practice a skill that most of us learned as children. It all begins with one simple question: how would I understand this situation if it were me?

Written by Dr. Melissa Robinson-Winemiller.
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