Why empathy is essential for workplace success

When I was 35, a ruptured brain aneurysm nearly killed me. My husband and I had just moved to a new city, bought our first house, adopted a dog, and I had recently started my own business. Life was running at 100 miles an hour and I thought this is what hustling was supposed to feel like. Living my best life, right?

Until I collapsed, unconscious, on my bathroom floor.

I miraculously survived. Recovery wasn’t always easy due to my new cognitive deficits. However, the experience taught me about the power of empathy to heal and how clarity and decisive action — especially when the stakes are high — can be the most compassionate things someone can do to alleviate stress, confusion, and anxiety.

From staff supporting my husband in those crucial first hours to my care team treating me as a person—calling me by name and letting me choose my meals for six weeks—I felt seen, heard, and valued. Their kindness eased my stress and made a difficult time less isolating.

According to a 2024 Businessolver State of Workplace Empathy Study, 37% of CEOs still believe empathy has no place in the workplace. This same study shows a marked increase in perceptions of workplaces being toxic.

Clearly, we have a workplace conundrum that needs addressing. Engagement is down and mental health issues are up. Experts now cite loneliness as a health epidemic. It begs the question: Should empathy ever be put aside at work, or should we be doubling down on it?

When we define empathy too narrowly, we overlook its power to build resilient, high-performing teams and boost engagement, collaboration, and innovation. Empathy means seeing, understanding, and, when appropriate, feeling another’s perspective—then using that insight to act with compassion. It’s a way to gather information, understand context, and take the next right step together. With this definition, it is safe to say that unless you are being physically or psychologically hurt, there are almost no circumstances where we should be putting empathy aside at work.

Empathy at work includes practicing clarity, transparency, and decisiveness. 

Going back to my story — Above all, I credit my surgeon and care team for practicing the often overlooked aspects of empathy: decisiveness, transparency, and clarity.

Can you imagine if my surgeon stalled on a decision to give my family a chance to research, analyze, or familiarize themselves with what was going on?

He shared the information, clearly explained the risks and upsides, and patiently answered their questions, but he made a firm decision to move forward because he kept his eye on the ultimate goal: Saving my life.

This kind of decisive action was exactly what my disoriented and overwhelmed husband needed at that moment. It was truly empathetic.

Harvard Business School professor highlights the importance of decisive action when he writes, “A comprehensive study of compassion in the Clinical Psychology Review defines it as recognizing suffering, understanding it, and feeling empathy for the sufferer—but also tolerating the uncomfortable feelings they and the suffering person are experiencing, and, crucially, acting to alleviate the suffering.”

Here are some ways that empathetic leaders can show up with greater decisiveness.

Revisit your goal and purpose — often

Leaders can often get caught up in the drama surrounding important decisions and lose sight of the goal. Create a way to clearly kick yourself in the pants as you make a decision: make your goal physically visible using a sticky note or by including it at the top of every discussion agenda. Read the mission out loud when you kick off meetings to reorient everyone to true north.

Here are some tactics to try:

• Bake in goal-review processes: You can add goal statements to tracking paperwork, insist on reviewing the purpose at every major goalpost, or ask stakeholders to consider the overall goal any time they request a change or addition.
• Make goal-centricity a group endeavor: Ask your team members or colleagues to be accountability partners in remaining goal-focused. They can remind you, “Which option aligns with the larger purpose?” whenever they see you waffling.

Practice transparency

There’s no need to make all decisions in a secretive way and unveil them only when they are fully baked. Learn to be clearer quicker, and if possible, talk openly about the choices you’re making and have made. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but let’s find out together.” A study published in the Journal of Communication Management reveals how transparent communication significantly influences employees’ trust in their organizations.

Here are some tactics to try:

• Share your failures: Being human with your teams means they’ll feel comfortable doing the same, which builds empathy in both directions. It also will slowly erode any anxiety you have about making “bad” or “wrong” decisions.
• Process with trusted colleagues: By allowing yourself to process with team members or other leaders verbally, you can reveal your thought processes and limiting factors.

Solicit and synthesize input

Practice soliciting input from others, but be clear that once a decision is made, naysayers will be asked to disagree but commit. At a certain point, we’ve all got to move forward together and still be committed to the mission.

• Focus on impact: While general feedback is important, if you want to be decisive by implementing input quickly, you need specifics. You can practice asking the feedback-giver to recommend one thing you could do that would make a difference to them
• Express enthusiasm for feedback: Ideally, soliciting input should be constant, not sporadic. Verbally reward and encourage feedback regularly.
• Start small: You can try a low-risk experiment, like asking everyone to vote for the location of the next off-site, department lunch. Leverage all that input to quickly make a call yourself, and practice communicating your decision back.

Set a deadline

In an article for Fast Company, psychotherapist Amy Morin recommends getting in the habit of setting deadlines for decisions that trip you up. If it’s a small decision—say, picking a spot for a business lunch—give yourself a few hours. If it’s weightier—a big investment or strategic pivot—think more in terms of days or weeks.

Here are some tactics to try:

• Leverage tech: It may sound simple, but just putting a reminder in your phone or calendar can help you stay on track to make decisions in a timely manner.
• Schedule a decision review block each day: Consider setting aside thirty minutes or so each day to review and mull upcoming choices. This is also a good forcing mechanism for leaders who are overwhelmed by choices.

Empathy isn’t just about listening and understanding—it’s about acting decisively, transparently, and with clarity when it matters most so no one is left anxious and scared in the dark. Leaders who embrace these qualities foster trust, reduce anxiety, and inspire collaboration, even during challenging times.

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