This article was originally published on HR.com
In boardrooms across the country, executives are talking about AI integration, economic volatility, and market growth. But one of the most powerful levers for performance rarely makes the agenda—empathy.
This isn’t about being “soft” or lowering standards. It’s about recognizing that in today’s workplace, where burnout is high, trust in institutions is low, and talent competition is fierce, leaders who lack empathy will struggle to retain top performers and sustain productivity.
The data is clear: Empathy drives performance. It fuels employee engagement, strengthens collaboration, and accelerates innovation. According to Catalyst, employees with highly empathic senior leaders are more than twice as likely to be engaged and nearly five times as likely to be innovative compared to those with less empathic leaders. In a competitive economy, those differences can be the deciding factor between meeting your organization’s goals and falling short of your performance targets.
The Risk of Ignoring Empathy
Too often, executives underestimate the cost of neglecting empathy. Employees who feel misunderstood or undervalued are more likely to disengage, seek new opportunities, or contribute the bare minimum. This disengagement isn’t just a cultural issue; it’s a financial one. Gallup estimates that disengagement costs the global economy $9.6 trillion annually due to low productivity.
The problem is amplified in times of rapid change. Business transitions, reorganizations, and economic downturns create stress and anxiety for employees. Without empathetic leadership, that uncertainty turns into rumor cycles, reduced collaboration, and lost productivity.
For CHROs and senior HR leaders, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. You can equip your leadership teams with the emotional intelligence skills that drive connection, loyalty, and high performance. And it starts with embedding empathy into your leadership culture.
Why Empathy Is Essential for Business Leaders
Empathetic leadership doesn’t mean lower standards or diminished results. In fact, it helps people deliver exceptional work. Empathy allows leaders to understand the barriers to performance and address them directly, whether that means clarifying priorities, reallocating resources, or providing targeted learning opportunities.
When employees feel supported, they are more motivated, more engaged, and more accountable. The standard of excellence doesn’t change; what changes is the level of trust, focus, and discretionary effort employees are willing to invest.
Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is a core component of emotional intelligence. In business, it’s the foundation for:
- Trust and Retention: Employees who feel heard and understood are less likely to leave, reducing turnover costs and preserving institutional knowledge.
- Collaboration and Innovation: When people feel safe to speak up, they share ideas, challenge assumptions, and drive innovation.
- Resilience and Adaptability: Empathetic leaders help teams navigate change with less friction, maintaining productivity through disruption.
In addition, empathy supports inclusion and belonging by creating an environment where employees from all backgrounds feel valued. That inclusivity strengthens decision-making and ensures a broader range of perspectives in problem-solving.
How Leaders Can Put Empathy into Action
Empathy can’t be faked, and it can’t be deployed only when there’s a crisis. It’s expressed through consistent, intentional actions that show employees they are valued as people, not just as producers of results. Here are five ways to lead with empathy at scale:
- Make Space for Genuine Listening: When leaders give their full attention and actively seek to understandothers’ perspectives, employees feel seen and respected. This builds psychological safety—a critical condition for engagement and innovation.
- Collaborate on Solutions: Listening is only the first step. Act on what you hear by working with employees to address concerns. If workload is unsustainable, adjust priorities, redistribute tasks, or provide additional resources. Follow-through demonstrates credibility.
- Invest in Mental Health and Well-being: Normalize conversations about personal challenges, professional pressure, and burnout. Ensure employees are aware of resources like Employee Assistance Programs, wellness initiatives, or mental health days. Sometimes, simply asking, “How can I help?” can make all the difference.
- Offer Flexibility Where Possible: Whether it’s remote work, hybrid schedules, or flexible hours, providing autonomy over when and where work happens is a tangible demonstration of trust. Flexibility supports retention, especially for employees managing caregiving or health challenges.
- Recognize and Appreciate Contributions: Empathy isn’t only for challenging times. Acknowledge great work in both personal and public ways—through handwritten notes, shoutouts in team meetings, or performance-based rewards. Recognition strengthens connection and reinforces shared purpose.
Building Empathy into Your Leadership Culture
For CHROs, empathy should be a measurable leadership competency, not an optional trait. Incorporate emotional intelligence training into leadership development programs. Use employee engagement surveys to assess whether teams feel heard, valued, and supported. Hold leaders accountable for demonstrating empathy in their daily interactions and decision-making.
Empathy, when embedded into leadership systems, becomes a cultural multiplier. It reduces costly turnover, attracts top talent, and enhances brand reputation. It also creates the conditions where high performance can be sustained over time—without burning people out in the process.
The Bottom Line
Empathy strengthens human connections and strategic capability. In a business climate defined by rapid change and constant pressure, empathetic leaders are better equipped to inspire loyalty, maintain focus, and drive performance.
For HR leaders, the mandate is clear: develop leaders who can deliver results and understand the human factors that make those results possible. Empathy builds stronger relationships, fosters innovation, and creates resilient organizations ready to meet whatever challenges lie ahead.
About the Author
 | Donald Thompson, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2023 SE Award-winner, founded The Diversity Movement, a Workplace Options Company, to fundamentally transform the modern workplace through diversity-led culture change. Recognized by Inc., Fast Company and Forbes, Thompson is the author of Underestimated: A CEO’s Unlikely Path to Success, hosts the podcast “High Octane Leadership in an Empathetic World” and has published widely on leadership and the executive mindset. His latest book is The Inclusive Leadership Handbook: Balancing People and Performance for Sustainable Growth, co-authored with Kurt Merriweather, Vice President of Global Marketing at Workplace Options. |