Six years ago, I was reviewing research for a new book, Tenacity in Children: Nurturing the Seven Instincts for Lifetime Success, that I co-authored with my friend and colleague, Dr. Sam Goldstein. We labeled one of the seven instincts or inborn attributes “Compassionate Empathy,” defining “empathy” as understanding the world of another person on both an emotional and cognitive level, and “compassion” as drawing upon that understanding to initiate behaviors to improve the lives of others.
One of the articles I read in researching the book was written by James Allworth, Head of Innovation at Cloudfare, a New York Times bestselling author, and graduate of Harvard Business School (HBS). He described what he considered to be “the most valuable thing they teach at HBS.”
What do you think he judged that to be?
Empathy!
Allworth explained, “These probably aren’t words that you were expecting to see in the same sentence—Harvard Business School and empathy. . . . Empathy teaches you to step out of your own shoes, and to put yourself into those of someone else.” He added, “It’s a trait that is sorely lacking at the moment. There’s a case to be made that the American political system is suffering at present because empathy has been almost entirely exorcised from within its walls. Politicians are being elected on the back of their ability to vilify those with whom they don’t agree. The jettisoning of compromise is a direct result of this state of affairs; why would you give an inch of your position to someone whose perspective you can’t even bring yourself to entertain.”
Allworth’s article was published in 2012—thirteen years ago! Assessing the current political scene, I believe a lack of empathy has become even more apparent in 2025 than it was in 2012.
After conveying insights about politics, Allworth shifted to his main area of interest: the role of empathy in the business world. He reported that Akio Morita of Sony and Steve Jobs of Apple were well-known for not commissioning market research—instead, “they’d just walk around the world watching what people did. They put themselves in the shoes of their customers.”
Allworth then offered an example of a company that failed to appreciate the importance of empathy: Blockbuster. In the early 2000s, Blockbuster was a $6 billion business, employing thousands of workers and having stores across the country. Allworth asserted that Blockbuster failed because it did not appreciate Netflix’s viewpoint or that of its customers.
“Blockbuster’s management couldn’t bring itself to see Netflix’s perspective: that while Netflix was only achieving 30% margins, Netflix wasn’t comparing its 30% to Blockbuster’s 60%. Netflix was comparing it to no profit at all. And Blockbuster’s management couldn’t see the world from their customers’ perspective: that late fees were driving folks up the wall, and that their range of movies eschewed anything that wasn’t a new release.”
Allworth concluded that while Blockbuster knew it could invest to create a business to compete with Netflix, it failed to do so. The result: Currently, there is only one Blockbuster store in the world, located in Bend, Oregon. It is reportedly a popular tourist attraction.
A Compassionate Workplace
I was thinking about Allworth’s emphasis on empathy when I recently read an article by Ace V. Simpson, director of the Center for Compassion Studies in New York, titled “How to Build a Compassionate Workplace.” He defined compassion within organizations “as noticing, empathizing with, appraising, and responding to members’ suffering.” While Simpson appears to embed empathy within the definition of compassion, Sam and I viewed them as related but distinct in our concept of Compassionate Empathy. However, the overall components of Simpson’s definition resonate with the views we shared about Compassionate Empathy in Tenacity in Children.
Simpson introduced an interesting point, namely, that this definition of compassion had limitations since it was based on the “giver’s perspective—the one who notices, empathizes, appraises, and responds.” He asked, “But where is the person receiving the compassion in that definition?” Simpson recommended we gather more information about the recipient of the compassion, noting the importance of seeking “to understand how it’s their signaling for support that actually triggers the compassion process. . . . Organizational compassion, then, is a co-created process between receivers and givers—one that unfolds through signaling and noticing, emoting and empathizing, narrating and appraising, describing needs and responding with support to address suffering in the workplace.”
An Absence of Co-creation
If organizational compassion is understood to be a co-created process between the recipient and the giver, an important question arises. What happens, as is often the case, when the relationship between these parties is not of equal status? What if employers or managers lack empathy and fail to understand, validate, or notice the signals being emitted either subtly or not so subtly by their employees? Unfortunately, when empathy and compassion are in short supply or absent, co-creation will suffer. Negative emotions will dominate the scene, contributing to low employee morale and performance. This employee behavior is likely, in turn, to increase employer resentment, fueling an ongoing negative cycle in which anger and frustration intensify while empathy and compassion diminish.
I have worked with employers and managers who minimize or ignore signals of distress conveyed by their employees. One manager said to me, “Some of the people who work for me always complain and seem unhappy, and their work is not very good. I don’t understand. I think they should be grateful to work here. They get decent salaries and benefits.” When I interviewed staff who reported to this manager, a common theme I heard was that he dismissed any concerns they had. One observed, “Even when he asks for our opinion, if what we say disagrees with his point of view, he’ll tell us that we should stop complaining, and he’ll often add that we should be grateful (interestingly, the same word the manager used) to work here. It’s difficult to work in a place where you feel your manager doesn’t care about you.”
This situation is in marked contrast to the benefits that accrue when leadership is empathic and committed to creating a compassionate workplace. Simpson observed that when organizations display compassion towards their people, this compassion is returned “in the form of goodwill, loyalty, and engagement. It also leads to better customer outcomes, because when employees care about the organization, that care spills over into how they treat customers or patients.”
Simpson added, “That would be a kind of utilitarian argument—a business case—for why compassion matters in organizations. But beyond that, it’s also simply the right thing to do—an expression of virtue and a recognition of human dignity.” I was especially drawn to his use of the word “dignity,” since that is a word I often use in my presentations and writings.
So What Do We Do?
A crucial question is what specific actions can leaders take to nurture empathy and compassion in the workplace? I have often highlighted the ways in which small actions can have a notable impact on our personal and professional lives. Simpson captured the power of these small actions when he wrote, “Leaders play a pivotal role in fostering compassion within their organizations—first and foremost, by simply giving permission to others to be compassionate. . . . In any social dynamic, there will be micro-acts of kindness, and organizations are no different. Day to day, people cover for each other, they provide slack for one another, they support one another in different ways—emotionally but also practically as well.”
Simpson’s next comment supported Allworth’s belief about the most valuable thing taught at HBS. He observed, “And this facilitates day-to-day organizational functioning, although it’s not necessarily taught in business schools or acknowledged in management and organizational theory. We might even say that organizations couldn’t function without those micro-practices of care and compassion.” Simpson emphasized that it’s critical for leaders to demonstrate compassion.
In my consultations with various organizations, it is evident that when leaders model empathy and compassion, those they lead are more likely to exhibit these same behaviors. And the reverse is also true: when leaders fail to display caring, empathy, and compassion, this failure will become the dominant culture in the organization.
Questions to Reflect Upon
I often pose the questions below to people in leadership positions. I believe they are also relevant for staff and for relationships in our home environment. Consider how you would reply.
“What is one small action I have taken in the past few days at my workplace that displayed empathy and compassion?”
“What was the reaction of the recipient of that action?”
“If I seldom communicate empathy and compassion, what is one micro-action I can initiate to do so?”
“Can I think of a time in my workplace in which I was a recipient of an act of compassion?”
“What impact did it have on me, and did it change my behavior towards others in my workplace?”
“Did I ever experience a lack of respect, empathy, and compassion in my workplace?”
“If so, what effect did this absence of respect, empathy, and compassion have on me?”
As you reflect on your responses to these questions, keep in mind that a smile, a warm greeting, a supportive comment, a simple validation of another person’s viewpoint, a message of appreciation, or a note of congratulations are all positive micro-actions that can have a truly strong, long-lasting effect. Very importantly, they are all actions that are within our control to initiate.
Start small by selecting one micro-action you can direct towards someone in your life, perhaps a person in your workplace. And then, see the impact it has on you and the other person. Helen Keller once remarked, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”