When we asked respondents how they define empathy, understanding was the word used. To put empathy very simply, at its essence, it really is about understanding and sharing the feelings of others (Oxford Languages 2022). However, participants went much further with their own definitions of empathy and how they’d like it to be shared.
Further definitions included:

“the ability to relate to another person's experience without imposing your own judgement or values on it.”

“Empathy is about being able to step into the shoes of others, to experience the feelings and emotions they have and understand the complexity of what they face.”

“The ability to look at things from a different perspective and to think about how others are feeling, and if what I am saying or doing is going to affect them (in a good or bad way).”

What is Empathy?

Source: The Empathy Project, Q9: In your own words, how would you describe ‘empathy’?

When we think about what makes a thriving workplace, things that come to mind might include collaboration between teams, job satisfaction and an inclusive work culture. These also happen to be the top three benefits of an empathetic workplace, in order of importance, as nominated by the respondents. The other top responses included lower staff turnover, better creative output and more rewarding work.

So who are the most empathetic people in the industry? Our teammates and in most cases our direct managers. Those who know us the best and that we’re likely to spend the most time with. Indeed, those groups average a 3.9 out of 5 in a rating of ‘overall how empathetic to your needs are the following people?’ In comparison, the least empathetic people were seen to be clients and suppliers at 2.8 and 3.1 out of 5 respectively.

The findings show that although leaders in our organisation have good intentions of maintaining mentally healthy workplaces, their visions aren’t being carried on through the organisation. There is a gap in the empathy levels leaders think they are displaying, vs what middle managers and juniors are experiencing.

The data infers that leaders need to do more to address this gap than has been created by good intentions. It’s a topic that their employees believe is essential and it would be a huge opportunity lost if it was to end up perceived as paying ‘lip service’ to the topic. Time is running out for businesses that aren’t going beyond a ‘box-ticking’ exercise towards empathy and mental health and becoming active in listening, supporting and understanding the needs of individuals.

For too long, the standard response to addressing the threat of someone leaving an organisation has been to throw money and titles at the problem. While of course it’s always nice to earn more and be rewarded for all their hard work, it also can have a negative effect on our industry’s culture and wellbeing. Leader’s promoted to positions where they’re responsible for people without any experience, training, guidance on what’s expected of them. It piles the pressure on the expectations of themselves (as observed in our Mentally-Healthy studies in 2018 and 2020) and only serves to pass that pressure onto those around them.

This has further impact on individuals looking elsewhere for a culture they fit into, or a manager / leader they want to work for. You see, while the money and the title is nice, it’s a short-term fix. We found a significant connection in the study that impacted on our likelihood to leave a job in the next 12 months – culture and belonging.

We crave acceptance, workplaces that are inclusive, a feeling of belonging and an understanding of our lives outside of work. These cravings have undoubtedly been impacted by the pandemic and remote working, where communication has become even more focused on transactional tasks, occasions and getting shit done, and less on ‘catching up’ or ‘going for a coffee.’ Spending time on these areas would most likely decrease the likelihood of staff wanting to leave their roles.

Leaders would also be well-advised to address the topic with their external stakeholders (clients, agencies, vice-versa). The responses in the survey had plenty of examples of situations lacking an empathetic handling of situations that were opportunities for empathy overload.

Like the participant who was rushed to hospital after a client party, only to be sms’d by the client at 7am the next morning to request the plan on how deadlines would be hit while they were ‘off’. Or the client that told their account manager that their ‘life had been ruined’ because of a courier arriving ten minutes after a print deadline. Then of course, there’s destruction of empathy from within. One respondent shared that their manager told them -

"Stop being dramatic! you're not burnt out, I know what burnout looks like – we just need to get through this.”

Thankfully, we asked for what they would rather have received as a response.

So in case that was you and you were wondering…

“You're clearly being affected by this situation so let's talk about how we can reduce the stress involved. If you're feeling burnt out you have the right to take time to recover.  There will always be deadlines but your health is more important.”

Despite the best intentions of leaders, the gap exists. And in many cases it’s managers that are stuck in the middle, unable to deliver on the expectations of their leaders, and unable to practice the empathy craved by their teams. Middle Managers were more likely to believe that empathy was important as a staff retention tool, were more likely to believe empathy was not significantly important to their organisation, and more likely to be looking to leave their organisation. We haven’t created the culture and practices to help these people and in turn to help empathy and mental wellbeing to thrive.

If leaders would like to see improvement in this space (and we truly believe they would) then they need to break the cycle of unrequited empathy (yes, we made that up - but it’s got a nice ring to it)!

We’ve been told that we ‘need more empathetic leaders’ but we’re grappling with the dynamics of having to put ‘clients and profit first.’ ‘Our mental wellbeing suffers’ as a result. In a desperate attempt to make things better ‘we give people time off’ and put in place things like ‘wellbeing programs’, meditation sessions, EAP’s (Employee Assistance Programs) but it’s all in vain… if ‘we continue with the same practices’ that got us to this point in the first place. We have to break this cycle.

One response that pretty much summed up the gap between intention and execution was this:

“Sorry, I know they are stacked and struggling but I really need them on this, they are the best people for the job.”

For a micro-second there was a smither of empathy in this response, but it was wiped out with the introduction of the word ‘BUT.’ In fact, as Brene Brown explains, as soon as you words and phrases like ‘but’ or ‘at least’ you’re only practicing sympathy, and unfortunately that’s not getting us anywhere.

BUT is oiling the cogs of our unrequited empathy cycle and stopping empathy in its tracks. BUT says I care, but I don’t. BUT says we’ll change in the future, but we won’t. BUT says it will be different tomorrow, but it never is.