Empathy Isn't the Soft Skill. It's the Hard One.
"Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash"
Ask a room of executives to name the traits of a strong leader, and empathy rarely makes the first pass. Decisiveness, yes. Composure under pressure, Empathy usually shows up later — if it shows up at all, and often with a qualifier: "soft," "nice to have," "important, but..."
That ranking has it backwards. In my work with leaders — and in the emotional intelligence assessments I run using the EQ-i 2.0 — empathy consistently shows up as one of the hardest skills to build, not the easiest to skip. It's also one of the highest-leverage. Leaders who develop it see real movement: more innovation from their teams, better engagement, less burnout, lower turnover.
So why do so many capable leaders avoid it?
The three traps
I hear versions of the same three assumptions from leaders who've quietly decided empathy isn't for them:
"If I open the door, I'll never close it." The fear that one empathetic moment invites an avalanche — that showing you care means managing everyone's feelings, all the time. In practice, the opposite tends to happen. People who feel heard once don't need to be heard constantly. It's the leaders who never open the door who end up fielding the same frustrations on repeat.
"If I give it, I should get something back." This one's subtle — a quiet expectation that empathy is a transaction. Show care, expect loyalty or output in return. When it doesn't come back on schedule, the leader concludes empathy "doesn't work" and stops. But empathy was never a trade. It's a leadership behavior, not a bargaining chip.
"Strong leaders don't need it." The oldest trap — that empathy signals softness, and softness signals weakness. I'd push back hard on that framing. Reading a room, sensing when someone's stretched thin, adjusting your approach accordingly — that's not weakness. That's situational awareness, and it's a core leadership competency, not an emotional indulgence.
Remote work isn't the excuse
I hear this one often: "Empathy was easier in person. Now everything's over video or email, and I've lost the cues." It's a convenient explanation — and it doesn't hold up. The employees on the other end of those calls and emails don't report feeling less understood because the medium changed. Some even prefer the pause a written message gives them before reacting.
What actually erodes empathy on a screen isn't the screen — it's inattention. Leaders who stare at their own video tile lose the read on the other person. Leaders whose voice carries stress or rushes past questions signal disengagement just as clearly as a blank expression would in person. The channel isn't the obstacle. The distraction is.
Building the muscle
Empathy, like any leadership skill, responds to deliberate practice:
Listen to understand, not to respond. Ask a real question. Reflect back what you heard before moving to your point.
Watch yourself operate. Leaders who review their own communication — a recorded call, structured feedback, coaching — consistently spot patterns they can't see from the inside.
Find your model. Identify someone you already consider genuinely empathetic. Watch how they run a conversation. Ask them how they do it.
None of this requires a personality overhaul. It requires the same thing most real leadership growth requires: honest self-awareness, and the willingness to practice a skill you haven't been rewarded for yet.
When you see it differently, you lead differently.
Mary Ellen Donlevy, ICF PCC, is an executive and leadership coach and founder of Springfield Coaching. Conversation. Clarity. Leadership.
