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Navigating the Three C’s of Effective Remote Leadership
Remote leaders often wonder what the most important skills are for leading virtual team members to drive results and keep …
Empathy isn’t just about being nice. True empathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, identify their feelings and share in them. As a Stanford University research psychologist, Jamil Zaki said in a McKinsey and Company podcast episode, “Empathy is an experience. Kindness is a behavior.” However, empathy can drive kindness, just as it can drive leadership.
Empathetic leadership focuses on understanding the needs, feelings and perspectives of others and using this information to guide decisions. When leaders are empathetic, they build trust, cultivate psychological safety and forge meaningful connections, which in turn boost motivation and morale among employees.
According to a 2025 systematic review, empathetic communication given by leaders positively impacts employee performance, particularly in times of uncertainty. Considering the impact of rapidly advancing technology and volatile business environments, empathy is a much-needed skill to ease employees’ anxieties in today’s workplaces.
Empathy is more than a soft skill—it’s a leadership superpower. Fortunately, anyone can develop empathy, just like many other skills.
The following steps can help you lead with empathy, making team members feel understood, cared for and more motivated to go the extra mile.
Active listening involves fully focusing on what a person is saying. It’s about being present in the conversation as much as possible, continually bringing one’s mind back to the moment.
Active listening is a core component of empathetic leadership because it allows a leader to understand the message someone is conveying and demonstrates to employees that they’re genuinely being heard.
Some of the ways leaders can practice active listening include the following:
Another way leaders can make employees feel heard is to acknowledge and validate their feelings. For example, if an employee expresses feeling a lot of pressure about their workload, the leader might say, “It’s completely understandable that you feel that way.” Even if the leader disagrees with the employee regarding workload pressure, they make that person feel heard by validating their emotions, which is vital to creating a strong connection and building trust.
It can also be helpful to acknowledge emotions that an employee expresses through nonverbal cues. For instance, if someone is frowning during a meeting, their leader might say something like, “You seem like you may be upset.” Acknowledging that the person may be upset is far better than disregarding their body language, because it shows that the leader is willing to give attention to their concerns and genuinely wants to connect with them. This practice signifies to an employee that they can trust their leader.
According to Stanford University research, people have higher levels of trust when engaging with those who acknowledge their emotions. Even if a person misreads an emotion, they still garner more trust than someone who ignores it.
Part of being an empathetic leader is creating a safe space for communicating thoughts, feelings and concerns openly. Leaders can foster such a space by modeling open and transparent communication themselves. Doing so requires being as open as possible with information and explaining the “why” behind decisions, which shows employees they are trusted with important details. In turn, employees will feel more comfortable sharing ideas and concerns. Overall, open communication creates an environment that’s supportive and promotes collaborative problem-solving.
Empathetic leaders seek and consider different perspectives. When leaders ask for input from multiple parties, they make all employees feel respected, heard and capable of making a difference, which can boost morale and job satisfaction.
Diverse perspectives give leaders more information to enable creative problem-solving. For example, while investigating a common customer complaint, leaders can ask both the product development team and the sales representatives for insights. That way, they can consider various angles to brainstorm multiple solutions.
Checking in with employees regularly and asking them to share their thoughts and feelings can help build a culture of belonging and make everyone feel crucial to an organization’s success.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is fundamental to empathetic leadership because it impacts a person’s ability to recognize, understand and regulate their emotions. It also enables them to better understand and relate to the emotions of others. With high EI, leaders can identify and control their feelings in challenging or stressful situations, preventing these emotions from clouding their judgment so they can stay focused on employee needs.
Anyone can develop emotional intelligence, and it begins with building self-awareness. There are many ways to develop self-awareness, such as reflecting on one’s emotions and how they made others feel in a particular situation. Other strategies include seeking honest feedback and pausing to examine reactive emotions in the moment.
As workplaces continue to become more human-centric to meet the needs of today’s workers, empathy will remain one of the most vital leadership skills. Through empathetic leadership, organizations make employees feel heard and understood while motivating them to consistently contribute their best effort.
At The Center for Leadership Studies (CLS), we offer a range of leadership development solutions to help your employees become more empathetic leaders. From our Communicating Effectively course to our engaging Situational Leadership® Essentials program, our solutions foster the skills needed to lead with empathy. Explore our learning solutions today or contact us for more information.
