The ability to empathize correctly creates deep bonds and friendships like few other conversation skills can.
How to Empathize Correctly
Empathizing is about reading between the lines of the conversation. It’s realizing they’re describing their feelings for a reason. In other words, recognizing it’s important to them.
Your job is to put yourself in their shoes, in their situation, and figure out why it’s important and what exactly they’re feeling.
You may also need to help them work out what they’re trying to say, since sometimes they’re clouded by emotion.
Here are some helpful Dos and Don’ts to Empathizing:
Consider also the evangelical turn against empathy. There are now Christian writers and theologians who are mounting a frontal attack against the very value that allows us to understand our neighbors, that places us in their shoes and asks what we would want and need if we were in their place.
Caring for others is empathy. Empathy’s not sympathy, which is good, but incomplete, just feeling bad for someone. Empathy is openness to others and more. Generally, it’s when people identify with, try to understand and share others’ situations and feelings, to “sense the hurt or the pleasure of another.”
But recently, there’ve been critics. Cynics, I’d say, complaining that empathy is dangerous or old-fashioned.
Northwestern University researcher Kevin Waldman in April warned of “radical empathy.” He didn’t adequately explain, but “radical” is a loaded word with connotations, intentional or not. It’s like saying a woman’s “only” 5-foot-2, which implies she should be taller. (Maybe, if she’s in the WNBA.)
Failing to listen has become one of the most concerning problems society faces. Proper communication is the core of interactions at work, in schools, and personal relationships, yet listening is treated as a passive or secondary skill. Even when people appear to listen, they typically do so poorly. They are distracted, tune out, or prepare their responses while the speaker is still talking.
Christine Miles, the CEO of EQuipt and an expert in listening, asserts that the issue lies in how individuals are wired and educated. “We’re told to listen instead of taught to listen,” she explains. Unknown to many, listening is a complex skill that requires focus and intentionality, and most people lack the tools to develop it.
Her book is more about subjective self-doubt and empathy. She doesn’t critically examine her own policies. Nor does she express empathy for those who felt disadvantaged or excluded by them – granting as always that emergency measures had been necessary. And, as she heads further into an international career, there’s no expression of empathy for those who now need it most, be they children in Gaza or refugees in South Sudan.
It’s disappointing Ardern doesn’t define key words: empathy, leadership or power, for example. There are different ways to understand them, and definitions carry assumptions.
It is these unglamorous moments of her time in office — which she sprinkles throughout the book — that lend credence to her thesis: Leading with empathy and kindness is a choice anyone can make.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
We’re sitting so close to Harvard, which has been at the center of heated debates, and now you’re releasing a book about kindness and empathy in leadership. How does this all fit together?
I started writing it after I left office — early to mid-2023, and look, though there was a lot of difficulty in the world, now feels vastly different from then. So it’s not lost on me, the environment it’s going into. But I would have written the same book regardless. Because, even then, ideas of empathy and compassion and kindness in leadership were treated as if there was a naïveté there, and probably even more so now, and I just push back on that.
Why Empathy Is More Important Than Ever As algorithmic interaction increases, customers are hungry for something real. They want to be heard – not as data, but as human beings with emotions, needs, and experiences.
A Motista study showed that customers emotionally connected to brands have a 306 per cent higher lifetime value (5.1 years) than satisfied customers (3.4 years).
Empathy-driven brands, through thoughtful messaging, proactive support, or co-creative design, establish trust and longevity. Take the example of body care campaigns challenging beauty stereotypes or a shoe’s legendary customer service going the extra mile despite AI being able to close the ticket with ease
Clinical empathy is one of the cornerstones of Healthcare Bioethics, a novel theoretical-normative framework within Clinical Bioethics proposed as an alternative to Principlism. Methodologically, this paper consists of theoretical research aimed at examining the foundational role of clinical empathy on Healthcare Bioethics and its implications on care. In the first part of the paper, we present the theoretical-normative foundations of Healthcare Bioethics, arguing that clinical empathy’s moral role derives from its epistemic and motivational functions. Its epistemic function enables professionals to understand the mental and emotional states of patients, ultimately promoting care aligned with Patient-Centered Care and Shared Decision-Making models.
The “politics of empathy” might not be in vogue, but Ardern remains committed to it. Is it a strong enough weapon against authoritarianism? Elon Musk recently said that “the fundamental weakness of western civilisation is empathy”. She snorts. “What does that even mean?”
Attacking empathy is all the rage with the right, I point out, especially in the US. There are popular books called Against Empathy and The Sin of Empathy. “Well, in that environment, saying loudly and proudly that you believe in empathy and that you’ll govern in that way is an act of strength.”
But public life today is so horrible, so brutal. Why would anyone go into politics? “I think the rehumanisation of people in public life is really important,” she says.
: The Role of Empathy in Math Class; "We teach people, not content" (Allen, 2002) ; focusing on social norms to foster a culture in math class that prioritizes solving problems in multiple ways in order to listen to and respond to people who think differently from you. Two stories - one about a fifth grade class where students were explicitly taught how to listen to other perspectives. Second story is about me, how I learned math successfully in a traditional manner, developed the empathetic ability to value other viewpoints, and the bumps along the way.
Numerous studies have examined the impact of empathetic leaders in organizations. However, the systematic consolidation and categorization of these effects have not yet been conducted. This article presents a systematic literature review of 42 academic studies, carefully selected from 5 databases using a rigorous search process, with the aim of developing a concise category system that synthesizes the effects of empathetic leaders in organizations.
After discussing theoretical lenses and our methodological approach, we outline the various understandings of empathy and the measuring instruments used in the analyzed articles. As our main contribution, we then describe nine categories that summarize the effects of empathetic leaders in organizations. These categories consider affect, attitudes, empathy, equity, interpersonal relationships, leadership practice, perception, performance, and well-being. We further outline the individuals or groups affected by these effects
The last few rounds of conversations surrounded empathy for addicts and these conversations may have fundamentally changed the way I view people’s capacity for empathy.
Many conversations online started with “I have empathy for addicts until…” and you can fill in the blank with whatever you want, until they steal drugs from a hospital or patient.
...Until they endanger someone else’s life. ...Until they’re ungodly mean to someone who’s been nothing but good to them. What people are saying is, “I have empathy for addicts until they start acting too much like an addict.”
Three years ago, I moved from London to Australia to work with Small Giants Academy on a program called the Mastery of Business and Empathy. It was a leap, personally and professionally. The program was drawing in leaders from all walks of life: activists to entrepreneurs, global executives and policymakers. Lorna Davis, former Chair and CEO of Danone North America, and Dane O’Shanassy of Patagonia were among the many speakers on the program who model what it looks like to lead with conviction, care, and courage.
Having graduated my MBA at Oxford University’s Säid Business School, I knew this program was what the leaders of our world needed. An alternative to traditional business education that prepares curious leaders for the ‘next economy’.
That’s why empathy is considered a superpower in relationships, especially among our rich and quality singles who desire meaningful connections.
What Is Empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings. An empathetic person doesn't just listen—they genuinely care, connect, and respond with compassion. Whether it's celebrating success or offering comfort during a challenge, empathetic individuals bring emotional intelligence and balance into relationships.
Why Is Empathy So Important in Love?
Deepens Emotional Bond: Empathy allows couples to communicate on a deeper level.
You feel heard, seen, and truly understood.
Reduces Conflict: When both partners are empathetic, arguments don’t escalate. They resolve disagreements with understanding and grace.
Increases Trust: When someone senses your feelings and cares, you naturally open up more, building a foundation of trust.
Fosters Supportive Partnerships: Empathetic singles know how to give support without being asked. They tune into your needs, emotionally and mentally.
Builds Emotional Resilience Together: Life’s ups and downs are easier to face when your partner feels what you feel.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was one of the youngest elected leaders in history, one of only two premiers to give birth while in office and the only one to take her infant into a session of the United Nations.
She's written a memoir about her life and time in office. It is full of surprises, including the story of how a shy sensitive person, full of self-doubt could succeed in such a tough job - modern professional politics.
In this episode of “The Opinions,” the Times Opinion politics correspondent Michelle Cottle speaks to the columnists Jamelle Bouie and David French about the rise of “toxic empathy” and how the right has turned compassion into weakness.
Ben Garrett, a podcaster and pastor, tweeted a photo of Budde in a miter and said, in part, “Do not commit the sin of empathy.” Garrett went viral, though his rhetoric was not original. His initial claim — that empathy can be sinful — has long percolated among a loose network of far-right writers, pastors, and theologians whom some critics call TheoBros.
Evangelicals as I knew them loathed abortion and women in the pulpit and the prospect of same-sex marriage, but that is not enough for Garrett and his peers. They want a Christianity with teeth, a fighting religion that will not only vanquish but eradicate their foes. When Garrett spoke of sinful empathy, he merely echoed writers like Joe Rigney, who helped popularize the idea years before publishing The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits in February.
Hojat et al introduced the concept of empathy in the context of patient care, suggesting that empathy is primarily a cognitive (rather than affective or emotional) attribute that involves understanding patients’ experiences, concerns, and perspectives (rather than feelings), the ability to convey this understanding, and a willingness to help.2 Research shows that empathy helps improve patient satisfaction, thereby promoting their compliance, reducing patient anxiety and depression, and is associated with improved clinical outcomes.3 In addition, empathic physicians are more likely to achieve job satisfaction, psychological well-being, and make better clinical decisions.4–6
Dr. Nicole Ofiesh and Kara Matejka talk about their work prioritising empathy and perspective shifting for individualised instruction to support brain-based learning. Through stories about their experiences in individual private practice (educational therapy and cognitive therapy, respectively) and now through Brain Explained*, they share how their aforementioned practice of utilising empathy leads to brain-based learning, which is known to have a positive impact on individual learners throughout the lifespan.
Key points that Dr. Nicole Ofiesh and Kara Matejka present are when individuals gain an understanding of how best they learn, they are able to navigate barriers and capitalise on their strengths; empathy should function as the guide to supporting who were once called nontraditional learners but now make up the majority of learners; adapting new ways of thinking and broadening our perspective about learning contributes to a foundational shift of brain-based learning.
Practitioners who enhance how they express empathy and create positive expectations of benefit could improve patient outcomes. However, the evidence in this area has not been recently synthesised.
Objective To estimate the effects of empathy and expectations interventions for any clinical condition.
Design Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials.
Allan Rohlfs is a seasoned psychotherapist, educator, and certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) with over five decades of experience in empathic listening and interpersonal communication. His extensive career includes teaching at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago for 30 years, where he focused on pastoral care and listening skills. When I Listen People Speak and Come Alive, is the culmination of author Allan Rohlfs five decades long work of practicing listening and teaching.
Edwin Rutsch and Alan Rolfs discuss the evolution and impact of empathic listening, emphasizing its transformative power in personal and societal interactions. Rolfs, a psychotherapist and author, highlights his journey with Carl Rogers and Eugene Gendlin and the development of his book on empathic listening. They explore the challenges of scaling empathic practices, such as the Empathy Circle and Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and the need for a cultural shift towards empathy. Rolfs suggests that empathic listening leads to deeper connections and personal growth, advocating for a broader dissemination of these practices to foster a culture of empathy.
What Empathy Actually Means (Beyond the Buzzwords) Let’s be honest—“empathy” has become one of those words that gets thrown around in every corporate presentation, right alongside “synergy” and “disruption.” But strip away the consultant-speak, and empathy is actually pretty simple.
It’s asking yourself this: If I were the person on the receiving end of this system, how would I want to be treated?
When you’re looking for a job and get rejected, do you want a one-word email that says “No”? Or would you prefer something that actually acknowledges your humanity?
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