New Perspectives on Empathy and Leadership: An Empirical Study

Background: A Striking observation

• Growing interest in the leadership vs. management topic

• Classroom dialogues on what makes an effective leader

• Longitudinal survey of essential leadership qualities: Whom would you follow?

• A striking finding through the survey of undergraduate respondents

Background, cont.: Empathy is the last thing leaders need to be effective

04/10/2023 3

Background, Cont.: Literature review• Business leaders

– are encouraged to be narcissistic (innovation, charisma, vision)– often lean toward psychopathic behavior

• superficially charming, grandiose, deceitful, remorseless, antisocial, irresponsible, impulsive, void of empathy, lacking goals, and poor in behavioral controls. 

• Business students– are more focused on self-interest than students in other disciplines– of all business areas, finance students are least empathetic and most narcissistic – cheat more (50% higher rate of cheating than any other major)– are less cooperative – are more likely to conceal instructors’ mistakes– are less willing to yield /more likely to defect in bargaining games. 

• Business schools – still focus too much on academic and social skill sets toward a competitive world– Focus too little on inter-human, or “softer”, skills.

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Background, cont.: more literature review

• Importance of empathy in leadership– Large number of scholars confirm the need for empathy and 

ethical behavior in leaders

• Empathy can be developed– 2006 study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience– Eriksen (2009): Self awareness exercises in class–  Izenberg (2007): empathy, optimism and resilience can be 

taught in the classroom – Devay (2010): religious and spiritual practices, such as 

meditation– Mahsud, Yukl, and Prussia (2009): management 

development programs and executive coaching 

Background, cont.: JBE article

• Empathy in leadership article

04/10/2023 Joan and Svetlana's Research 6

Data Analysis

• SAS: Business Analysis & Business Intelligence• 2008-2013–Mean– Standard Deviation– Range– Coefficient of Variation– Trends– Spearman Correlation

The Overview

Empathy Service Intelligence Competence Charisma Courage Integrity Vision Passion Responsibility0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

2008-2013 Averages

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Basic Descriptive Statistics

2008-2013 Mean St. Dev. C.V. Min Max

Empathy 7.90 1.90 24.07% 1 10

Service 8.21 1.76 21.41% 1 10

Intelligence 8.26 1.41 17.12% 4 10

Competence 8.39 1.42 16.88% 3 10

Charisma 8.48 1.55 18.29% 3 10

Courage 8.73 1.44 16.48% 2 10

Integrity 8.90 1.50 16.87% 2 10

Vision 8.97 1.37 15.32% 5 10

Passion 9.32 1.06 11.40% 3 10

Responsibility 9.36 0.99 10.53% 4 10

The Lower Five

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20136.00

6.50

7.00

7.50

8.00

8.50

9.00

9.50

Empathy Service Intelligence Competence Charisma

The Upper Five

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20136.00

6.50

7.00

7.50

8.00

8.50

9.00

9.50

10.00

Courage Integrity Vision Passion Responsibility

Spearman Correlation

  Intelligence Charisma Responsibility Vision Integrity Passion Courage Empathy Competence Service

Intelligence1.0000                  

                   

Charisma0.3141 1.0000                

< 0.0001                  

Responsibility0.3078 0.1909 1.0000              

< 0.0001 0.0173                

Vision0.2922 0.2562 0.3171 1.0000            0.0002 0.0013 < 0.0001              

Integrity0.4317 0.356 0.3485 0.3419 1.0000          

< 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001            

Passion0.2485 0.3276 0.3302 0.3387 0.3211 1.0000        0.0018 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001          

Courage0.2967 0.3108 0.2602 0.3809 0.2956 0.5006 1.0000      0.0002 < 0.0001 0.0011 < 0.0001 0.0002 < 0.0001        

Empathy0.4587 0.4079 0.3057 0.4027 0.4531 0.3811 0.3805 1.0000    

< 0.0001 < 0.0001 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001      

Competence0.4301 0.3851 0.2801 0.2076 0.3590 0.1750 0.1970 0.4217 1.0000  

< 0.0001 < 0.0001 0.0004 0.0095 < 0.0001 0.0295 0.014 < 0.0001    

Service0.3894 0.2383 0.3354 0.2942 0.3283 0.3659 0.4197 0.5674 0.3588 1.0000

< 0.0001 0.0028 < 0.0001 0.0002 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001  

3rd lowest ranked leadership value: INTELLIGENCE: – Students consider intelligence one of the lesser important values for 

leaders. Why? – Possible answers: 

• People like to relate to their leaders. Intelligence may not be the trademark of an average person.

• Intelligences may pertain to multiple fields: intellectual, emotional (interpersonal, intrapersonal), etc.

• Other thoughts?

2nd lowest ranked leadership value: SERVICE: – Why would service be considered of so little importance to leadership?– Possible answers:

• Service is multi-interpretable: may pertain to the “service industry”, the acts of “supporting”, “facilitating,” or “helping”, or to “servant leadership”.

• Other thoughts?

The low ranks“Empathy, Service and Intelligence have been ranked lower than most other categories, with Empathy often being the lowest” (Hu, 2013).

Lowest ranked leadership value: EMPATHY: Why has empathy been (almost) consistently ranked lowest of all leadership values?

– “The following eight codes, or reasons why empathy may not be considered important in leaders, were identified:1. Empathy interferes with (rational and ethical) decision making 2. Empathy may be perceived as a sign of weakness3. Too little life/work experience to recognize empathy as a powerful leadership tool in

action4. Respondents (wrongly) tend to disassociate business from the human component 5. Misunderstanding the meaning of empathy for ‘‘pity’’, which is dehumanizing 6. Empathy is fleeting/situational, while other qualities are stable 7. Historical lack of references/illustrations/visibility and discussion of empathy 8. Respondents lack empathy themselves

These codes were further consolidated in the following two major themes: 9. Respondents believe that empathy is inappropriate in business settings (codes 1, 2, 4). 10. Respondents have a lack of familiarity with empathy (codes 3, 5, 6, 7, 8)”.

(Holt & Marques, 2012, p. 100).

The low ranks

Interesting correlations“The strongest correlations are found between:

(1) Empathy and Service(2) Passion and Courage(3) Integrity and Empathy(4) Intelligence and Empathy” (Hu, 2013).

Curricular influence?• 2nd lowest ranked leadership value: SERVICE: 

– Decreased after 2011 (MGMT 461 -core BBA course…!)– Increased again after 2012 (MGMT 350 – prereq) 

• Lowest ranked leadership value: EMPATHY: – Decreased after 2011 (MGMT 461 -core BBA course…!)– Increased again after 2012 (MGMT 350 – prereq)

• Overall trends after 2011 (when MGMT 461 became a core BBA course)

– Empathy, service, integrity, courage and vision went down. – Competence increased. 

• Overall trends after 2012 (when we started enforcing MGMT 350 (Ethics) as a prerequisite to              the course)

– Empathy, service, integrity, and vision went up again.– Between 2009 and 2011, Responsibility was very high (no. 1).