My work and the research say otherwise. This false narrative forces us into a leadership paradigm that must choose between empathy or high performance, empathy or accountability, and even empathy or mental health. But the data and research clearly show that empathetic leaders and cultures boost a variety of performance vectors, such as engagement, retention, innovation, customer loyalty, inclusion, and customer satisfaction.

It is Not an Either/Or Paradigm. It is Both/ And.

My work over the years has shifted from pure brand strategy, helping brands leverage empathy to better connect and engage with their ideal customers, to advising forward-thinking organizations on how to leverage genuine empathy across their organization for stronger leaders, thriving cultures, and, yes, winning brands.

What is empathy at work? It is not crying on the floor with your employees. Empathy is being willing and able to see, understand, and (where appropriate) feel another person’s perspective and use that information to act compassionately.

Put simply, empathy is a form of information gathering, where you put ego aside enough to listen to another point of view or understand someone’s context so you can take the next right step together. That step could be negotiating a compromise, giving them space, actively listening, laying people off with more compassion, upskilling an employee to succeed better in their role, or even counseling them out with full support and resources.

Empathy is a form of information gathering, where you put ego aside enough to listen to another point of view or understand someone’s context so you can take the next right step together.

However many leaders are ill-equipped to practice empathy at work.

They falsely believe the common myths about empathy.

1. They may believe it is a weakness. When it requires great strength to listen to another person’s point of view without defensiveness or fear. And that doing so often leads to better business decisions, because diverse views can point out overlooked opportunities or risks.

2. Or they believe empathy is about caving into unreasonable demands. That is not empathy that is submission. We can make tough business decisions but do so with empathy for those impacted.

3. Finally, empathy is not about agreeing with someone. We can listen to someone‘s point of view to understand better where they are coming from so we can perhaps choose a third path. We can now understand where they are coming from, even if we still do not agree. Empathy is about connection, not conversion.

The dark side of empathy is this: too many leaders, in the name of empathetic leadership, are sacrificing performance standards or burning themselves out trying to take care of everyone. They again have fallen victim to the false narratives of what empathy is and what it is not.

When you invest in helping people understand themselves better, you build a faster-moving, more innovative, and emotionally regulated workforce.

So how can leaders balance the needs of the business with the needs of their people without burning out?

After years of research and hundreds of interviews, I deconstructed what made some leaders both empathetic and extremely high-performing. What made them the leaders people wanted to work for? Some of them did not even know why or how they did it until we delved into it.

I discovered five common traits and behaviors modeled byy these empathetically healthy business leaders. Common threads that I saw over and over again.

The Five Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership.

When leaders are feeling burned out or that the team is not performing to their potential (or expectation), they may want to assess if any of these pillars need to be shored up themselves or their team culture.

Empathy means getting to know each other on a personal level, as human beings, to build trust and mutual respect.

Pillar 1: Self-awareness: To be empathetic, you must get your own house in order. Otherwise, you cannot take on other points of view without ego, fear, or insecurity. Emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman has said, “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

Engage in self-assessment, reflection, and external feedback to better understand your strengths, blind spots, leadership style, and emotional triggers. And help your team collectively understand themselves and how they interact. This can take the form of countless self-assessment tools like Enneagram, DISC, or Clifton Strengths Finder, as well as peer and 360° reviews or work with a business coach, therapist, or trusted peer group. When you invest in helping people understand themselves better, you build a faster-moving, more innovative, and emotionally regulated workforce.

Pillar 2: Self-care: When your capacity is low, you have nothing left to offer others. Think about when you are tired or hungry; are you able to be patient, clearheaded, or open-minded? Self-care goes beyond manicures and massages. It is not a luxury but a necessity. Self-care involves enforcing strong boundaries, taking time to recharge your mind, body, and spirit in whatever ways work for you, delegating, resting, and stewarding one’s mental health as a leader. Empathetic benefits around self-care could include mental health days, unlimited paid time off, or employee assistance programs. When you are fully charged, you are better able to show up for your team and you model this for your employees to keep them at optimal levels as well.

Pillar 3: Clarity: Clarity is not just kind, it is empathetic. Resentments build where misunderstandings thrive. One of the biggest reasons leaders and workers clash is the lack of communication on mission, roles, and responsibilities. We cannot hold people accountable to an expectation we have not set. Yes, empathy at work looks like clear career progression maps, clearly defined values (and what they look like in action), actionable feedback, and discussing previously unsaid rules and norms of the team culture so no one is fumbling in the dark. In my work as a brand strategist, I have helped teams articulate their mission, vision, and values in useful and powerful ways that can be applied and measured to move work forward each day, not merely serving as a pretty poster on the wall.

Pillar 4: Decisiveness: Nothing is less empathetic than keeping people in limbo. Brain science shows us that a brain under stress or anxiety goes into fight or flight and does not fully engage critical executive functions, needed for innovating and problem-solving. Some leaders delay tough decisions or conversations in the name of empathy (“I don’t want to hurt their feelings” or “I want to find a decision everyone is happy with”) but that is unfair to the team. Empathetic leaders who practice decisiveness do not merely dictate decisions they encourage feedback and ideas but swiftly synthesize those inputs to make a firm call and transparently explain why it was made that way. They address problems with curiosity and compassion before they fester, and they practice radical yet kind honesty.

Pillar 5: Joy: Yes, joy. Not that work is always fun, but creating a culture of levity, one where people can relax, build camaraderie, and friendships, and perhaps share a laugh goes a long way to enabling our brains to relax (see Pillar 4) so we can innovate and problem-solve. Even tough work environments such as ERs and police stations can create moments of levity that build trust and resilience. One C-suite leader cited his ability to laugh at himself and get to know employees personally making it easier to make big asks when times get tough. ‘They trust that I’m asking for a reason so they are willing to go the extra mile.’ The most empathetic and high-performing leaders also seek input from their team on how to create more levity and joy they don‘t have to come up with all the ideas themselves.

You may notice that nowhere in these pillars do we advise “Being a total pushover” or “Never asking your team to work overtime”. Empathy is more about mutual understanding and support than it is about acquiescence. In a work setting, it means getting to know each other on a personal level, as human beings, to build trust and mutual respect. It means ensuring everyone understands each other, their roles and goals, and the fundamental reasons they are being asked to perform specific tasks. The goal is not people-pleasing: it is to enable your teams to thrive and do their best work.

Without that understanding, it is easy to conflate compassion with concession.

It is vital to show leaders that we can leverage empathy to achieve radical success, but we have to be smart about it. We must take care of ourselves so we can continue the workplace and leadership paradigm shift that, quite frankly, was happening way before the Pandemic. The global crisis just accelerated the conversation faster than we could absorb it, for necessity‘s sake.

The balance between empathy and accountability can readily be achieved. We must embrace the Both/And paradigm so we can practice empathy without sacrificing productivity, profit, or purpose.

Empathy is a nuanced and complex concept that, unfortunately, many leaders get wrong. But if leaders can walk the tightrope, armed with the 5 Pillars, we will see our organizations flourish, our people live up to their potential, and the world at large benefit from the transformative impacts.

For too long, we have created leadership models that reward coldness, dictatorship, command, and control.

But our world has changed and to solve the complex challenges before us in the 21st century, we need leaders who can listen, recognize our common humanity, synthesize multiple perspectives, stay open to new ideas, and bring people together more quickly than ever.

Our leadership models are not laws of physics, We humans created these models, which means we can shift them.

Let‘s be crystal clear: the future of work is already here. We are living right now in a new era of work, and leaders are feeling the shift in challenging ways. Managers and leaders are being squeezed. They are being asked to take on a lot of roles: motivator, high-performer, doer, diversity champion, mentor, and driver of flawless results in a highly competitive landscape.

Leaders have three options to move forward:

They can revert to the status quo and watch engagement plummet and their best talent walk out the door.

They can bend over backwards and grind themselves down trying to make everyone happy all the time. Spoiler alert: You cannot!

Or they can leverage the Five Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership and embrace empathy as a core value while simultaneously establishing boundaries, norms, and guideposts that protect leaders and team members alike.

I know which way I would choose. Do you?