Empathetic Leadership: 47 Practical Tips for Leading with Kindness, Courage, and Confidence in an Age of Disruption
Michael Brisciana
Trust Publishing (January 2019)

“People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Theodore Roosevelt

In his classic work, Denial of Death, Ernest Becker acknowledges that no one can deny physical death but there is another form of death that can be denied: The death that occurs when we become wholly preoccupied with fulfilling others’ expectations of us. Just as it is almost impossible to love or like someone else unless and until we love or like ourselves, Michael Brisciana asserts that “we must take care and become strong ourselves before we can take care of and be strong for others.”

So, what exactly is “empathetic leadership”? According to Roman Krznaric, empathy is “the art of imaginatively stepping into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions.”

In Brisciana‘s book, he provides 47 tips for leading with empathy. All people are both extroverted and introverted to varying degree. Some leaders are more extroverted than introverted; others are more introverted than extroverted. It remains for each reader to consider carefully all of the tips and then adopt/act upon those that are most appropriate to their own needs, interests, values, personality, and temperament, as well as to their situation where they are currently employed.

The results of all of the major research studies that I have examined indicate that both customers and employees rank feeling appreciated among the top three of what they consider most important to them. To those who are curious, price and compensation are ranked somewhere between 9th to 13th in terms of their relative importance.

There are few (if any) head-snapping insights in this book, nor does Michael Brisciana make any such claim. Rather, his focus is on providing as much practical, doable, and effective advice as possible about building strong workplace relationships between and among those who share one. This book offers an abundance of information, insights, and suggestions that can be of substantial value, especially to those who are preparing for a career in business or have only recently embarked upon one.

One final point about empathy, a word that now buzzes its way through so many books and articles about leadership: It should be viewed as caring enough about yourself and others that you do everything you can to help nourish personal growth and professional development, both yours and theirs’. I agree with the Roosevelt observation cited earlier. I also think that many (if not most) people should view themselves with greater empathy — the linchpin to emotional intelligence — than they do now.