Empathy Is Not a Perk
David T. Norman | Supercharge Leadership and Culture
Published on Leadership Perspectives | davidtnorman.com
Something has happened to empathy in leadership, and it happened fast. DDI's 2023 Global Leadership Forecast found that 59 percent of leaders now treat empathy as a cultural perk rather than a performance driver. Five years earlier, that figure was 34 percent.
Read that again. In under a decade, the leadership quality with the strongest link to organizational performance was reclassified, by the people responsible for performance, as a luxury they could not afford.
Why the Retreat Feels Reasonable
The retreat did not come from cruelty. It came from pressure. Leaders are stretched thin, measured hard, and told to do more with less. In that climate, empathy starts to feel soft, slow, and optional. So it gets cut, quietly, one interaction at a time.
The problem is that the premise is wrong. Empathy is not the opposite of standards. It is what makes high standards survivable. People will stretch for a leader who sees them. They will not stretch for a leader who only measures them.
What Empathy Actually Buys You
Consider a common scenario. A capable person starts missing deadlines. The enforcement instinct says add a checkpoint, tighten the leash, apply a consequence. The empathetic instinct says ask a better question first: what got in the way?
That single question does more than a dozen checkpoints. It surfaces the real obstacle, which is usually not laziness. It might be an overloaded plate, an unclear priority, or a problem no one told you about. Now you can solve the actual thing.
Here's the distinction that matters. Empathy is not lowering the bar. It is understanding the human standing beneath it. Those are different acts, and confusing them is how good leaders talk themselves into a colder, less effective style. The leaders who cut empathy to protect performance usually end up with less of both.
There is a business case here, not just a moral one. People give their best work to leaders who make them feel seen. Deci and Ryan's research on intrinsic motivation points to the same place: performance rises when people feel competent, connected, and in control of their work. Empathy is how a leader signals all three.
Reversing the Retreat
You do not need a program. You need a practice. This week, in one conversation that would normally be about pressure, ask what got in the way instead. Then be quiet long enough to hear the answer.
Do that consistently and something shifts in your culture. People start telling you the truth earlier, when it is still cheap to fix. That is not softness. That is how real accountability begins, from the inside, because people care about outcomes and trust you with the truth.
A Note From David
If this resonated, you'll find the full argument in my new book, The Eunuch Theory of Leadership: The Field Guide to Bureaucracy Pretending to Be Leadership. It's the field guide for anyone tired of watching process stand in for real leadership. Available now on Amazon.
Disclosure: AI tools were used in the research, outlining, or editing of this work. All arguments, insights, and final content reflect the author's own judgment and responsibility.