Are You Leading With Too Much Empathy?

One of the things I love about working with leaders in the HR/People space is they tend to be heart-centered, kind, empathetic humans. You care deeply for the people at their companies, which is reflected in your “people-first” approach to decision-making and operations for your organizations. But too much empathy can get in the way when it comes to your leadership.

Imagine a common scenario where someone comes to you because they’re feeling overworked and stressed out. They also share that they’re dealing with some challenging things in their personal life. They recognize it’s impacting their performance based on feedback from their manager, and they want to figure out how to best move forward.

An empathetic approach to the situation would likely involve some combination of active listening, acknowledging what’s going on for the person, and demonstrating your understanding through supportive comments and body language. You’re really good at this! And while taking this approach is crucial, how you support this person through their challenge to get to the other side is what really counts.

Here are two things to look out for and what to do about them to make sure these moments count:

First, too much empathy can lead to an experience of going beyond simply understanding (cognitively) and feeling (emotionally) what the other person is dealing with. It can have you suffering from the effects of those feelings, too. It’s like walking past someone who fell in a hole, getting down in there with them thinking you can help them out, and realizing you’re now also stuck in the hole. Our bodies will physically take on and mirror what the other person is experiencing. Not the most effective place to be supporting them from. 

If you’re like most HR leaders, you have a lot of these conversations with employees over the course of a week or even in a single day. Practice noticing when you experience the shift from cognitively understanding someone else’s situation to physically feeling their emotions, too. Quietly name to yourself what’s happening (e.g. “oh I notice I’m starting to feel the heaviness of what they’re feeling”) and remind yourself that you’re there to help them move forward, to get them out of the hole. So don’t jump in there with them! If you can start to notice and name the experience when this is happening, you’ll create enough distance to be able to support them more clearly while also bringing a sense of connection and understanding. It will also protect your energy, which I know can feel like a scarce resource these days.

Second, and a bit more nuanced, is that trying to solve another person’s problem from a place of too much (well-intentioned) empathy leaves room for your biases to show up. Do you really know what this person is dealing with? Do you really understand? Do you really know what it’s like to be down in that person’s version of a hole? Jumping too quickly to “I understand” puts you at risk of jumping to solutions that aren’t actually serving them or addressing the real challenge. This is particularly difficult for us as HR leaders because we love to solve other people’s problems! We love to jump in there and fix things. We love to make it all better. 

The key here, as we know from Amy Edmonson’s work is to bring empathy with equal amounts of curiosity and humility. When someone shares what’s going on for them, take time to inquire further. Stay curious longer and don’t assume you have the magic fix to make things better. When you can listen to really see what’s going on, you can coach them and co-create solutions in a way that works best for them and empowers them to move forward. You don’t need to have all the answers. Imagine yourself staying at the edge of the hole as you work through possibilities for getting them out together and moving them forward.

—

Chris Rollins is a Leadership and Executive Coach who launched his own company, Chris Rollins Coaching, in 2020 to support HR leaders and folks in the LGBTQ+ community. His story of leaving a 10-year corporate career to build a purpose-driven coaching business shows his commitment to building leaders and cultures that embrace modern, progressive, and inclusive people practices. Additionally, Chris launched and oversees an online community of LGBTQ+ HR/People/DEI leaders in an effort to bring together heart-centered LGBTQ+ leaders in the people space so that they can support and inspire each other to bring more humanity into the workplace.