Leading With Empathy

Empathy is acknowledged as an important leadership quality. Th ere is general agreement that empathetic leaders “enhance mutual communication and generate mutual trust  .  .  . between the leader and the follower” (Mackay, Hughes, & Carver, 1990, p.  57). Empathetic leaders do more than just sympathize with the people around them; they use their emotional intelligence to improve their organizations in subtle but important ways (Goleman, 2005).