Empathy with Backbone: Why Good Leadership Needs Closeness and Boundaries

Empathy is one of those terms that hardly any leader today would openly contradict. Of course empathy is important, people say. Especially in difficult times, when people feel unsettled. And naturally, they see themselves as empathetic leaders.

Yet there is often a considerable gap between one’s own aspiration and employees’ perception.

A 2024 U.S. study shows this very clearly: 55 percent of the CEOs surveyed were convinced that they led with empathy. Only 28 percent of employees and 22 percent of HR leaders shared that assessment. Apparently, empathy is plentiful — but often only in one’s own perception. The State of Workplace Empathy Report brings this discrepancy into sharp focus.

The current August 2026 issue of Harvard Business Manager also addresses this field of tension. What I find particularly interesting is the idea of a shared “empathy protocol.” It moves the discussion away from well-intentioned attitude and toward a crucial question: Where can we actually recognize empathy in everyday leadership?

Empathy is more than compassion

Empathy in leadership does not mean personally feeling every emotion another person experiences. Leaders do not have to become therapists for their employees. And empathy certainly does not mean avoiding conflict, lowering expectations, or trying to please everyone.

Leading with empathy first means making a serious effort to understand the other person’s reality before judging, deciding, or acting.

This includes listening closely, taking different perspectives, and noticing the needs of an individual as well as the interests of the whole team. Empathy is therefore not only emotional attention. It is also a form of gathering information: those who understand what concerns people, which experiences shape their point of view, and what they currently need can make better decisions.

One technology organization described in Harvard Business Manager therefore refers to empathy as “intellectual generosity.” What is meant is the willingness to give another person’s perspective genuine space and to allow one’s own assumptions to be challenged through contradiction and debate. The goal is not harmony at any price, but technical excellence through different points of view.

At first, that may seem unusual — and yet it captures an important point: empathy can be kind, but it does not always have to be comfortable. Respectful disagreement can also be empathetic. What matters is whether it serves the shared result and preserves the dignity of the other person.

What an empathy protocol can achieve

An empathy protocol is not a conversation script that gives leaders the right wording. Rather, it is a shared agreement about what empathy means in one’s own company or team and how it should show up in everyday work.

Four questions should be clarified:

1. What do we mean by empathy?
   Is it about genuine interest, perspective-taking, attentive listening, respectful disagreement — or a combination of these? The clearer the shared definition, the lower the risk that everyone understands something different by it.

2. Which behaviors make empathy visible?
   For example, by allowing people to finish speaking, asking questions before presenting solutions, or making it possible to speak difficult truths openly without exposing anyone.

3. How do we connect empathy with performance and responsibility?
   Individual pressures should be taken into account. At the same time, the team must not permanently carry the consequences. Empathy does not replace commitment. Rather, it helps find viable and fair solutions.

4. What do we mutually commit to?
   What can employees expect from their leader? What can the leader expect from the team? And how can both sides recognize that the agreed aspiration is actually being lived?

In this way, an abstract value becomes observable behavior. Empathy is no longer something a leader merely claims about themselves. It becomes something others can experience.

Really listening — without immediately taking the stage yourself

Many leaders try to create closeness by talking about their own experiences: “I know that. Something similar once happened to me.” This is usually well intended. But suddenly the conversation is no longer about the person who was looking for support; it is about the leader.

Empathetic listening requires something different: opening up space without immediately filling it yourself.

This does not require a sophisticated technique. Often, a few honest questions are enough:

• How are you experiencing the situation?

• What about it is weighing on you most?

• What is currently working — and what is not?

• What do you need from me right now?

• Would you like to develop a solution, or should I simply listen first?

The last question in particular can change a great deal. Not everyone who describes a problem expects immediate advice. Sometimes the most important support is for someone to remain present, listen, and not prematurely relativize the other person’s experience.

Supporting without taking over the problem

Empathetic leadership can easily tempt people into rescuer mode. The leader hears a problem, feels responsible, and immediately starts organizing solutions. In doing so, however, they may take away exactly the self-responsibility that leadership is actually meant to foster.

Four sober questions are more helpful:

• What actually happened?

• What support is needed?

• Who can sensibly provide that support?

• What is my role in this?

Leading empathetically does not necessarily mean providing the support yourself. It can also mean enabling access to the right kind of support.

The view of the whole remains important. Individual relief may be right. But it must not quietly become a permanent overload for other team members. Good leadership therefore holds the needs of the individual and the performance capacity of the community in balance.

Empathy needs boundaries

An empathetic leader does not have to be constantly available. Anyone who absorbs every mood, is reachable at all times, and makes every problem their own will eventually exhaust themselves. Empathy then turns into overwhelm — and the approachable leader becomes someone who withdraws internally.

Healthy boundaries are therefore not a contradiction to empathy. They are what make sustainable empathy possible in the first place.

Fixed times for focused work, clear rules around availability, and deliberately protected breaks are not signs of a lack of care. On the contrary: a leader who takes their own needs seriously also shows employees that self-care and performance belong together.

Three questions help with personal clarification:

• What boundaries do I currently need in order to lead effectively?

• Why are these boundaries important to me?

• How do I need to communicate them so others can understand and respect them?

Approachability does not mean permanent availability.

The right words are part of it, too

Empathy also shows up in language. Sentences such as “I know exactly how you feel,” “It’ll be all right,” or “At least …” are often meant to comfort. Yet they can unintentionally minimize the other person’s experience.

Better are phrases that acknowledge without pretending to understand everything:

• “I hear how much this is affecting you.”

• “That sounds like a truly difficult situation.”

• “I would like to understand your perspective better.”

Such sentences do not solve the problem immediately. But they create connection — and often that very connection is the prerequisite for finding a good solution together.

The protocol must not become a performance

As helpful as the idea of an empathy protocol is, it also carries a risk: empathy cannot be fully standardized. If leaders merely work through learned questions or recite the right sentences, people quickly sense that they are not receiving genuine attention.

An empathy protocol should therefore be a framework for orientation, not a script. It can clarify behavior and make mutual expectations visible. Yet the quality of the encounter still arises through presence, honest curiosity, and the willingness to truly be touched — or even irritated — by another person’s perspective.

Empathy is not a niceness program. It requires openness — and sometimes courage. The courage to listen when you do not yet know the answer. The courage to allow another perspective to stand. The courage to disagree clearly. And equally, the courage to protect your own boundaries.

Especially in crises, people need both: a leader who notices what is happening to them — and a leader who provides orientation. Real empathy combines humanity with clarity. That is precisely where its leadership strength lies.