Active Empathy: Embracing Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

In an age of digital transformation, today’s leaders are challenged to prioritize individual humanity, balancing emotional intelligence and compassionate communication to support the wellbeing of their team members.

Your star employee just lost a parent. Another is going through a divorce. A third is paralyzed by AI-driven career anxiety. As their leader, do you ignore these emotional realities or learn to manage them compassionately and productively? This choice shapes the wellbeing of not only the individual, but the entire team and organization as well.

Like it or not, business and emotions are deeply, inextricably intertwined. Too often, the default solution is to attempt separating emotions from business entirely–the “check your feelings at the door” approach. Many of us have seen the Don Draper-esque image of the “ideal” businessperson in popular media: logical, deliberate, emotions in tight control.

Yet an organization is a product of its collective humanity, and we humans are often, by our nature, irrational and emotionally messy animals. Our personal and professional lives are a minefield of emotional triggers: death, heartbreak, sickness, economic anxiety, the list goes on. In an era when generative AI threatens careers once considered unshakeable, is an emotion like anxiety such an unreasonable thing?

With over half of managers reporting burnout according to the Microsoft Work Trend Index, the complexities of modern leadership extend far beyond conventional metrics. A manager’s role demands mastery of both business fundamentals and human dynamicsーbalancing P&L responsibilities and shepherding careers, for example. 

The traditional executive playbook suggests compartmentalizing emotions from business decisions. Yet organizations are fundamentally human enterprises, and that human element carries inherent emotional complexity. In an era of unprecedented technological and economic uncertainty, emotional intelligence has become as crucial to leadership as financial acumen. That is where active empathy can play an important role.

Active empathy: emotional intelligence in practice

While a new term to many, active empathy is the practice of seeking understanding. Through active empathy, we strive to elicit, listen to, explore, and acknowledge another person’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences through open and non-judgmental communication.

When practiced mindfully, active empathy can build trust in our human relationships. It is an offer we make of an unconditional and safe platform in which emotions can be shared openly–valid and undisputed. Active empathy grants us the first step towards co-creating meaningful and actionable resolution of a problem. We cannot change another’s emotions in the moment any more than we can change our own, but in seeking to understand, we can uncover what underlying circumstances are actionable and can be changed. It is the process of curiosity and discovery of a fellow human being, as told through their own words.

Active empathy differs from its passive counterpart–what dictionaries would define simply as “empathy”. While passive empathy presumes an understanding of another’s emotions, active empathy begins by admitting that no true understanding is possible. Nor should understanding be the goal. Rather, active empathy’s purpose lies in the act of seeking understanding itself. It is the acknowledgement that the emotions and experiences of an individual are fundamentally unknowable to anyone but the individual themself.

We all have our own deeply personal experiences with the wonders and throes of human emotion. But can we say with honesty that we understand the personal experiences of another? Would we believe someone if they claimed they could truly understand our own? At best, the assumption of understanding marks a lack of curiosity. At worst, it can leave the other person feeling overlooked, unheard, misunderstood, or resentful.

To practice active empathy is to acknowledge the unconditional truth and validity of another person’s emotions, as well as those emotions’ inherent unknowability to anyone but the individual alone.

Five essential practices of active empathy in leadership

As a leader, the confidentiality of one-on-one meetings make them the ideal opportunity to attend to the wellbeing of your team members by being open, asking questions, and listening.

Here are five simple ways to start practicing active empathy:

1. Ask before assuming

Rather than relying on emotional intelligence to guess what’s troubling a team member, create space for them to share openly. Start by asking them to speak about what’s on their mind. This demonstrates trust and avoids the trap of mistaken assumptions that can damage relationships.

2. Use open-ended prompts

Replace yes-or-no questions with open-ended prompts that allow for deeper exploration. A yes-or-no question asks only for a shallow, one-word answer. Instead of asking, “Is this about Issue X?” try “Tell me about Issue X.” Open-ended prompts demonstrate genuine curiosity and invite the other person to speak their thoughts freely.

3. Reflect and validate using the other person’s words

Listen carefully to the words the other person uses when describing their emotions or experiences and reflect them in your responses. The difference between feeling “stressed” and feeling “lost” may seem subtle but can carry vastly different implications for the individual. For example, if they say they are feeling “lost,” you can explore deeper using the emotional word of “lost” as a shared touchstone. What does “lost” mean to them? What triggers are making them feel “lost”? This precision in language is a powerful tool for creating meaningful connection.

4. Remove personal comparison

Resist the urge to relate through your own experience unless invited to do so. As much as possible, try to take yourself out of the equation. While offering your own experience may be a well-intentioned attempt to show relatability, it can risk making the other person feel like the conversation has shifted to be about your needs, not theirs.

Small changes in phrasing can help. Try replacing the stock response of “I can imagine” with “I can only imagine” or “I can’t even imagine.” The difference here bears consideration. The former phrase assumes understanding, while the latter two acknowledge the other’s unique emotional situation without diminishing its importance through comparison to ourselves.

5. Focus on their goals

Before offering solutions, try to learn what support the other person is seeking. Are they looking for our advice, or simply a sounding board? Often, they already know what needs to be done, and becoming their sounding board can be validating and empowering. To be heard without judgment is an opportunity many feel they are afforded all too rarely in their professional lives. When advice is needed, listening and exploring openly can ensure that your guidance is tailored to each person’s unique circumstances.

Compassion at the heart of leadership

Today’s workplace is rich soil for emotional upheaval. We spend more time online and face more pressure to maximize productivity, often with less sense of stability than previous generations enjoyed.

The revolution of digital transformation comes with the inherent risk that humans, too, become mere numbers. Yet we are anything but. By taking the first steps towards practicing active empathy, we enable ourselves to care more deeply for the people around  us. Which, as any leader will attest, are the most valuable assets of an organization.

By: Luke Bruehlman