STOP TALKING ABOUT Empathy AND START ACTING ON IT
During my last full-time job as an executive leader, my colleagues and I were asked to stand in front of the entire company and talk about which of the organization’s corporate values resonated with us the most. Our choices: self-awareness, positive energy, judgment, intellectual honesty, and empathy. These values, along with others like integrity, courage, passion, and fun, might look familiar. They’re the list of company values taped up in corner offices and corridors around the world, even if most employees never know they exist.
“Empathy,” said the woman two seats down from me. “Because people say I’m good at connecting with other people.” Several nods from the crowd of supportive employees. “Empathy,” said the guy next to her, one seat down from me. “I care about other people, and do my best to treat them as I want to be treated.” More nods, and a few spontaneous claps. “Inƒtellectual honesty,” I said. “Because I’m pretty good at cutting through the bullshit.” I got a few smiles and nervous laughs but was mostly met with bewildered silence. I think I was supposed to say “empathy,” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As a branding and leadership executive, with a background as an academic psychologist, maybe I knew a little too much about what the word empathy means. Or, rather, how it can mean so many different things—yet absolutely nothing—at the same time.
For a word that didn’t exist in the English language until the 20th century, empathy has emerged as a linguistic superstar. Since 2004, Google searches for the word have risen steadily, with frequency more than doubling over the past decade alone. With the explosion of the global coronavirus pandemic—along with escalated racial tensions—empathy has embedded itself in the public discourse, often with reference to which political leaders have demonstrated it and which have not.
Outside the political ring, corporations, big and small, have become downright with empathy. Some leaders, like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, have a long track record
