If you’d asked me 10 years ago if the topic of empathy was likely to become a social and intellectual battleground, I probably would have laughed in your face.
Back then, we were at the peak of “bring your whole self to work”, “diversity and inclusion” and “psychological safety” fever. (I mean seriously, as we should be. The fact that human beings even need to be told to behave with care and respect in the workplace is a sad indictment on where the world is at right now.)
However, over the past few years I’ve noticed a growing number of commentators and leadership voices arguing that empathy has gone too far - that it makes weak leaders who can’t make difficult decisions, presumably because they’re too busy crying in the corner rather than getting stuff done.
I don’t want to give any of these people more airtime than they’ve already have, but if you search for titles such as The Sin of Empathy and Toxic Empathy, you’ll get a flavour for what I’m talking about.
It’s an idea that’s found its way into the corporate world, too. Every time I share content about empathy at work on social media, someone inevitably pops up to tell me that work is no place for empathy. Apparently it’s only hard-as-nails types who can successfully lead a company. Anyone who cares about other people’s feelings is likely to be chewed up and spat out.
I have to laugh at this take, because I think it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding - that empathy and decisive leadership are incompatible. This is simply untrue, and it’s a dangerous narrative if we want to maintain safe and healthy workplaces.
Empathy isn’t the enemy of good judgement. In fact, it’s a critical enabler of sound and balanced decision-making.
We’ve confused empathy with agreement
This might be controversial, but I believe anyone who says something like “empathy has gone too far” or “there’s too much empathy in the world” probably isn’t familiar with the true definition of empathy.
Empathy isn’t about keeping everyone happy, and it’s not about avoiding conflict. Nor is it about refusing to make difficult decisions because someone might be upset.
In its simplest form, empathy is the ability to understand another person’s perspective before exercising your judgement.
Here’s an example not related to work. I have a 10-year-old son. Like most kids, there are plenty of things he would rather avoid. School can feel overwhelming some days, and other days broccoli is highly offensive to his palate. Dentists and vaccinations rank somewhere between unbearable and catastrophic.
As his mother, and an empathetic person, I understand why he feels that way. However, that doesn’t change the decision. He still goes to school and eats his vegetables, and he gets his flu shot and goes to the dentist.
Empathy changes how I approach those decisions, because it makes me think about how I explain them and how I support him through them. It helps me look for strategies to make the experience less daunting. My empathy hasn’t disappeared because I’ve made a decision he dislikes. If anything, it’s become more important.
Leadership in any form works much the same way - including in the workplace. An empathetic leader may still need to restructure a team or reject a proposal that someone has put months of work into developing. Empathy doesn’t prevent those decisions. It influences how they’re made and communicated; and how the people affected are treated afterwards.
Rather than being a weakness, empathy is one of the foundation stones of good leadership.
Better decisions require better information
One of the biggest misconceptions about empathy is that it somehow overrides commercial acumen. In fact, the two work hand in hand. Empathy gives leaders a fuller understanding of the human consequences before they make commercial decisions.
If you’re in a leadership role, you’ll know you rarely make decisions with perfect information. Every significant decision involves competing priorities and incomplete data. I know from experience that leaders are constantly balancing the needs of employees, customers, shareholders, regulators and communities, all while trying to achieve commercial outcomes.
Empathy helps you fill in some of those gaps before you make a decision. It helps you understand what different groups stand to gain or lose. It reveals unintended consequences that might otherwise be overlooked. It will also highlights risks that don’t appear in the strategic roadmap, but may emerge months later - particularly human risks, which are much harder to plan for.
Empathy in itself doesn’t tell you what to do, but it does allow you to make a more informed decision. Good leadership has never been about seeing only one perspective. It’s always been about weighing competing interests before deciding on the best course of action. Empathy makes that process stronger.
What this means for today’s workplace
Right now, corporate leaders around the world are making decisions with enormous human consequences. AI is reshaping jobs and workforces, and many companies are restructuring and rethinking how work gets done.
It would be incredibly dangerous for company leadership to treat any of this as abstract strategic exercises - shuffling chess pieces on a board to get the right outcome for your investors.
Each decision affects careers, families and communities. And while they deserve to be made with commercial rigour, they also require leaders capable of understanding how those decisions will be experienced by the people living through them.
If empathy is dismissed as weakness, companies put themselves at significant risk of making decisions through an unnecessarily narrow lens. In my view, organisations that rely solely on a commercial lens will never produce a balanced set of decisions.
Every major business decision affects employees, customers, investors, suppliers and communities in different ways. Leaders who fail to understand those perspectives should expect problems further down the track, whether that's lower trust, poorer engagement, reputational damage or unintended commercial consequences.
Choosing the right leaders
Companies routinely assess potential leaders on commercial and technical capability before being appointing them. Can they read a balance sheet and develop a strategy? Do they have the right operational experience?
While these are important considerations, we tend to pay less attention to whether they can genuinely understand the perspectives of the people whose lives they’re about to influence. This feels like a significant omission.
Like it or not, companies are social systems, made up of people and relationships. When leaders make a significant decision, they impact others in and around the organisation. They should be capable of understanding those consequences before they act.
Once again, that doesn’t mean making decisions that will keep everyone happy, but it does mean making every decision with a fuller understanding of its impact.
We’d never appoint someone to the C-suite who couldn’t understand a balance sheet. Perhaps we should be just as reluctant to appoint one who can’t understand people.
One thing I’m thinking about this week
Earlier this week I became irrationally annoyed with social media. More specifically, I became annoyed with everything on social media these days being about selling stuff.
I’m old enough to remember when social media promised something genuinely exciting. It was going to democratise publishing and create a place where ideas could spread without needing the platform of a traditional publishing house.
It wasn’t perfect, but it felt like ideas were the currency. Even the bad ones.
These days, every second post seems to be leading me towards a product, a download, a masterclass or a sales funnel. Sometimes the sales pitch arrives before the creator has even earned my attention.
I recently saw someone ask, “If you’re not selling something, what’s the point?”
That made me a little sad. And then angry, because it made me feel like I was behind because I’m not selling a course or a system, just my ideas (and some totally amazing coffee mugs and tumblers). Then I started thinking… what happened to sharing an idea because it was interesting? Or useful? Or funny? Or simply because it made people see the world differently?
Don’t get me wrong. I run a business and sell services and products too. Businesses have to make money. We’ve all got to live.
I just hope we don’t lose sight of the fact that ideas have value in their own right. Sometimes it’s enough to contribute something thoughtful to the conversation, without turning every piece of content into a step in the sales process.
Call me crazy, but if you have nothing to add to the conversation except hustle… maybe it’s time to stop talking so much.
... also, please buy my mugs. 😄
Things I’ve made (and you can buy)
If you enjoy my content and would like to support my work, here are a few things I’ve created.
🛒 Track Changes On Shop - Coffee mugs and drinkware for corporate rebels
📖 Do Give Up Your Day Job - Guide to corporate exits and transitions to self-employment
