Want to Be a Better Leader at Work? Be a More Empathetic One

The working world is undergoing a wide and constant shift. Technology advancements, the proliferation of remote work and changes in external conditions have altered so many elements of company strategy. This climate demands a new skill set of leaders—that they be adaptable and emotionally intelligent.

“Emotional intelligence is a foundational leadership skill set that requires individuals to embrace self-awareness, regulate their responses, be accepting of feedback and learn from their mistakes,” Kate Duchene, CEO of RGP, a talent strategy consulting firm, told Newsweek via email. “Empathy is certainly a very big part of that, yet these types of soft skills were overlooked as leadership qualities for a long time.”

Amid ongoing, rapid evolution of the business climate, employee engagement is in decline. A recent study from MetLife highlighted “notable drops” in holistic health, productivity and engagement, with employees pointing to increasing medical costs and economic uncertainty as key sources of stress. Since the pandemic, mental health has also been a rising workplace challenge, and it’s further exacerbated by socioeconomic issues, global conflicts and political disagreements that increasingly come up at work. The impact of stress on workers and in the workplace can be significant.

“The pace of technological, geopolitical, and market change means constant organizational change. This can result in a high baseline level of uncertainty, worry, and stress,” Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, MD, chief innovation officer at BetterUp, a coaching and well-being platform, told Newsweek via email.

“Asking about a topic like stress doesn’t mean you have to know how to solve a problem. It shows that you care, as a manager, and you’re paying attention to the employee’s whole person,” Rosen Kellerman said. “You can simply express empathy and recommend resources available through your organization.”

Empathy is a crucial leadership trait to address declining employee engagement and rising stress. It has an impact on culture, retention, resilience and flexibility, according to conversations with HR leaders, leadership training practitioners and consulting professionals. It drives forward the concepts of psychological safety and trust and fairness that help define a positive company culture.

“Twelve percent of employees with the lowest levels of psychological safety said they were likely to quit within a year. But when psychological safety is high, only 3 percent of employees are at risk of quitting,” Boston Consulting Group wrote in a 2024 report.

“There’s no question that empathy is an essential leadership skill, particularly as the pressure mounts to preserve workforce stability and engagement, given everything that is going on in the external environment on top of organizational change that employees across industries and across the world are facing,” Girish Ganesan, chief people officer at S&P Global, told Newsweek.

The rise of remote work and hybrid arrangements has of course led to physical distance between managers and their teams. This has been good for employees’ sense of autonomy, but managers are missing out on nonverbal cues and the opportunity to understand a person’s baseline behavior in order to be able to identify if something is wrong.

As employees demand more trustworthy behavior and communication ability from their leaders, those leaders are looking for more consistent, predictable performance from employees.

“Our research shows a direct and powerful relationship between empathetic leadership and feelings of psychological safety in the workforce, giving leaders a clear directive to be empathetic and thereby engender psychological safety. This in turn delivers key workplace benefits to both the organization and its employees,” Boston Consulting Group’s 2024 report continued.

A 2024 research paper by Anders Friis Marstand and Olga Epitropaki of Durham University Business School in the U.K. and Ilias Kapoutsis of the Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece found that managerial acts of initiating structure, such as clarifying expectations, providing feedback and showing concern, are keys to high performance for remote or hybrid teams, noting that showing concern can include expressing appreciation and support or looking out for employees’ welfare.

“It’s worthwhile to periodically ask about workload and overall stress levels during one-on-one check-ins with employees, though they may or may not feel comfortable honestly answering the question when asked by a manager,” Rosen Kellerman said.

While initiating structure helps establish norms and standards between a manager and direct report, “the leader’s expression of concern can also instill positive emotions in followers that can decrease their perception of psychological distance from the leader,” the Marstand, et al., paper continued. This can be especially important when colleagues are not working together every day face-to-face.

“Our study has important practical implications, underscoring the crucial role leaders play in guiding employees towards adaptive coping strategies and maintaining their focus and productivity in remote and hybrid work settings,” the research paper stated.

In a world where STEM and the high value of technical skills get a lot of attention, interpersonal skills can sometimes be de-emphasized, Duchene noted to Newsweek. Solutions include rebranding “soft skills” to “human skills” or “power skills” and messaging the value of those skills across the organization.

“One of the really important things is how skills of empathy are positioned, and that they are positioned as human skills,” Christopher Hannegan, principal, workforce transformation at PwC, told Newsweek. “They’re very important business skills. When companies send a message that human skills are as important as technical skills, that then creates an environment where people can start to learn in new ways.”

Measurement around empathy can come from a mix of qualitative and quantitative feedback, Ganesan and Hannegan noted. This can include engagement surveys to track questions around psychological safety, asking if people feel comfortable raising questions or disagreements about company strategy, and if they are comfortable sharing ethical concerns they may have at work.

Ultimately, the push for empathy at work represents a culture shift meant to drive engagement and retention. Consulting firm McKinsey has noted the potential for empathetic leadership to drive “higher productivity, a stronger workplace culture, and better organizational health.”

Moreover, managers who have high turnover are not likely to have successful teams given the disruption that a string of departures can cause.

“As companies are looking at the levels and drivers of employee engagement, in my experience, listening, empathy, having that human connection is absolutely one of them. It doesn’t really matter what industry you’re in,” Hannegan said.

Ganesan shared that at S&P Global, they embed empathy “across a variety of different programs and practices,” including manager training that includes emotional intelligence and empathy components, as well as in-house coaching available to all employees.

“Things like guiding people through change, creating psychological safety,” he said. “Showing your emotional intelligence dealing with ambiguity, having difficult conversations. These are just routine leadership attributes now.”

He added that flexible working models are also a form of empathetic leadership in his view, and that HR departments can help managers by guiding them to watch for signs of burnout, keep open lines of communication and make themselves available for help. S&P Global was acknowledged as the Human Company of the Year by TLC Lions, a leadership training company, in an October 2024 ceremony.

“Creating that psychological safety cannot be underestimated,” Ganesan said, “particularly if you want that sense of connectedness back to the organization.”