Empathy At Work Enhances Career Leadership, Productivity And Profits

Forbes

08-07-2025

When practiced by business leaders and their employees, workplace empathy can have a huge impact on ... More worker satisfaction, innovation, productivity and the company's bottom line.
The power of one small word, 'Empathy' and the compelling impact it has on job satisfaction, workplace motivation and productivity is a hard sell. At first you might wonder what empathy has to do with leadership. Workplace empathy is increasingly recognized as a pivotal leadership tool, as important as hard skills in today's global market. Research shows that it enhances leadership skills and employee relationships, and it ripples through the workplace in the form of worker satisfaction, innovation, productivity plus company profitability.
How To Practice Empathy
A lingering myth links soft skills—such as compassion, trust, empathy, connection and kindfulness—with weakness and ineptness, stigmatizing soft skills as irrelevant and less valuable than hard, technical skills. Experts say that tough business leaders who prioritize hard skills to prevent soft skills from undercutting profits are opposing themselves. Soft skills are required to compete in the modern workplace. Why?
The ability to temporarily take up residence in someone else's perspective frees you from your own narrow thoughts and snap judgments. It neutralizes your hard feelings, imbues you with a softer approach to disputes and difficult situations and enables you to connect with others.
It's simple science. Empathy neutralizes snap judgments. When you're frustrated, angry or dissatisfied, your ability to take another person's perspective is blocked by your own emotions. But when you stretch to see his or her point of view, it's a powerful tool to shift from an emotional reaction to an objective response.
Here's an example of the power of empathy. Imagine you're having dinner with someone special in an expensive restaurant with candlelight, soft music and intimate conversation. Your server is invasive, impatient and short tempered. How would you feel? Most people would say annoyed or angry. Then the manager informs you that the server is a single mom and her little boy was recently killed in a car wreck. Now, how would you feel? If you're like most people, you would say empathetic.
What changed? Something inside you switched from anger to empathy, putting you in her shoes and softened your understanding of her actions. Chances are, your empathy might even lead you to leave a generous tip, despite the poor service.
In the workplace, you never know about the hidden emotional burdens coworkers carry on a daily basis. Everyone has inner struggles that others can't see or know about. Empathy is an efficient tool when employees make mistakes or show unacceptable behaviors. You may never know the why, but your curiosity holds snap reactions at arm's length and softens your reaction so you respond in a more appropriate and professional manner.
When you practice workplace empathy, it ricochets back to you in the form of employee appreciation, trust and enhanced productivity.Employees respond more positively to you, and the reciprocal actions clear the way for equitable solutions to many work issues. The humanity that empathy brings is more important than ever with automation taking center stage in the workplace.
Research On Empathy And Leadership
Studies show that the expression of empathy has far-reaching effects in your personal and professional lives. Businessolver's 2024 State of Workplace Empathy Study of 3,000 employees found that half of employees (50%) and CEOs (55%) are suffering from higher rates of mental health and workplace toxicity issues than in the past.
Employees are more invested in their jobs if they are in an empathic workplace that prioritizes mental health, and 77% of job seekers are more likely to apply for a job posting that listed 'kindness' as an important value of the company. Plus, employers are more likely to retain employees when they recognizes the importance of employee mental health. Employees say when organizations provide mental health benefits or programs, it amps up productivity (48%) and motivation (42%), reduces turnover (39%) and creates a sense of belonging in the organization (36%).
According to a Catalyst survey of 900 employees, empathy is an important driver of innovation, engagement and inclusion in the workplace. The findings show when leaders empathize by taking the time to connect with team members and understand their experiences and show care and concern, it enhances employee inclusion and retention.
Studies also show that when employers invest in empathetic behaviors, it leads to higher productivity, a stronger workplace culture and better organizational health. Employees in workplaces that are not empathetic are one and a half times more likely to quit, costing U.S. companies as much as $180 billion, according to the Businessolver research.
Confessions Of A CEO: 'Chief Empathy Officer'
CEOs talk too much, according to David Murray, who should know. He's the CEO and co-founder of Confirm, a performance management startup. He admits he's guilty of doing it in the past, but has focused hard on talking less and listening more. Now, he believes his role as CEO doesn't mean chief executive officer but 'chief empathy officer ' instead.
Murray told me that he prioritizes empathy for clients, feeling what they are struggling with before they can even name it. He puts listening over speaking to help employees solve their problems, instead of pitching his solutions. He shows empathy for the team, noticing what's dragging them down before it breaks them and they move on.
He says for a long time he thought his job as a CEO was to have the answers: to direct, decide and drive. But he started to realize the truth is, those are just the bare minimum things a CEO has to do to make a company function. 'The deeper and often more difficult work that matters is learning how to listen,' he says. 'If there's one critical skill I have learned to prioritize since becoming a CEO, it's empathy. That's why I focus on being a 'Chief Empathy Officer' as much as I can.'
'Empathy isn't soft,' Murray explains. 'It's strategic. It catches burnout before it breaks a key employee. It's how you hear the pain behind a client's frustration, the silence behind a disengaged employee. And it's how you build trust with prospects. People don't follow titles, but they do follow leaders who see them, and the same rule applies to your customers and prospects.'
Murray makes it a daily practice to ask himself, 'Who around me needs to be heard right now?' and he insists that the question changes everything. 'It shifts you from managing tasks to seeing people. It forces you to listen more than you talk and help your clients and prospects solve their problems often before they even know those problems exist." And it helps you pay closer attention to the quiet contributors in your workforce–the ones whose impact is deeply felt by their peers even if they don't shout it from the rooftops.'
Murray's best advice to other CEOs is to talk less and listen more. 'Start by sitting in on a meeting without leading it. Ask your team what's hard right now, then resist the urge to fix it right away. Build systems for your employees that reward not just outcomes but the people who make work better for everyone around them. The more you practice empathy, the more it stops being a tactic and instead, starts becoming part of your company culture and your DNA as a leader.'
Leaders see empathy's ripple effect. Empathic leaders attract empathic employees and promote well-being, engagement and company profitability. Organizations still practicing iron-fisted compliance will miss out on these advantages.