Is there a case for performative empathy?

Why leaders may want to consider it, according to science.

[Source Illustration: Adobe Stock]

BY Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Empathy has become one of the most appreciated and universal ingredients of work-related potential. Leadership books praise it. CEOs display it on LinkedIn. HR departments measure it, train it, benchmark it, and occasionally weaponize it. In the modern organization, empathy is no longer a “nice to have,” but widely treated as the hallmark of modern leadership.

To be fair, there are actually good reasons for this.

Empathy, broadly defined, is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Psychologists usually distinguish between cognitive empathy, understanding what someone else feels, and affective empathy, actually feeling some........

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