In short: Empathetic leadership works because it creates psychological safety and takes pressure out of a crisis. It reaches its limits where it turns into conflict avoidance. Anyone who only smiles away attacks and never sets a boundary is not leading kindly, but not leading at all. Top management needs both: closeness and clarity.
A football coach who understands nothing about football has become the most discussed leadership figure of recent years. Ted Lasso listens, allows mistakes and deals openly with his own. DER STANDARD asked me in September 2026 whether that makes him the better boss. The article is listed in the overview of our media appearances .
My answer had two parts, and that split is exactly what matters in practice. Empathy is a leadership quality with proven effect. It is not a leadership strategy, however, and it does not replace decisions.
What makes empathetic leadership effective?
Three mechanisms are well documented and directly observable in everyday leadership.
Psychological safety
Teams in which mistakes and uncertainties can be talked about learn faster and report problems earlier. Research by Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School has shown this connection since the 1990s, and Google’s internal study on team effectiveness confirmed it as the single strongest factor. A leader who names their own mistakes lowers the threshold for everyone else.
Taking pressure out instead of adding to it
In a crisis, many organisations reflexively tighten control. That is usually counterproductive, because it shifts attention from the solution to self-protection. When everything around you is thunder and lightning, a calm “let us take a look at this” is more stabilising than an order. How leaders stay effective under sustained pressure is also the subject of our resilience training.
Not having to have the answer to every question
Leaders who actively draw on the expertise in their team make better decisions than those who have to demonstrate competence. That does presuppose that a decision is still made in the end. Where it is not, the pattern of decision paralysis emerges that we described in Wenn Führungskräfte nicht entscheiden .
Where does empathetic leadership reach its limits?
This is where it gets uncomfortable for many leaders, and this is where the real work begins in coaching. Empathetic leadership rarely fails because of good intentions. It fails because of three patterns.
Conflict avoidance disguised as empathy. Anyone who smiles away attacks and never sets a boundary is not leading kindly, but not leading at all. This stance already moves into self-damaging territory, because it hollows out your own position and leaves the team without orientation. How tensions in leadership teams can be worked on before they escalate is covered in the conflict management seminar.
A missing willingness to give and take criticism. Listening is one half. The other is the willingness to give feedback even when it is unpleasant, and to accept feedback without immediately playing it down. Anyone who masters only the first half is experienced as pleasant, not as leading.
The time factor. Letting people patiently work out for themselves what they need, instead of issuing firm instructions, is methodologically superior. At the top level of a large company, hardly anyone takes that time. This is not a question of character, but of pace and scope of responsibility.
Why a gentle personality profile is rare at C-level
In my work with managing directors and board members, I have not yet met a consistently gentle personality profile at C-level. That is not a criticism of empathy, but an observation about selection: anyone who reaches the top of a large company has pushed decisions through against resistance for years.
Empathetic leadership is therefore not an alternative to assertiveness. The relevant question is not whether you should be empathetic or assertive. It is: do you have both, and can you switch between them as the situation requires? That is exactly what we work on in executive coaching for CEOs and board members.
Empathetic leadership in practice: four test questions
Four test questions I regularly ask in coaching:
- When did you last give feedback that you knew would not be well received?
- How do the people who work for you know where your boundary runs?
- Which decision are you postponing right now because a conflict is attached to it?
- In which situations is your friendliness a stance, and in which is it an evasive manoeuvre?
Anyone who answers all four questions without hesitating already leads situationally. Anyone who falters on two or more has a concrete starting point.
Frequently asked questions
Is empathetic leadership the right choice in times of crisis?
Yes, with one qualification. Empathy helps to bring pressure down to a workable level and to keep information flowing. The decision itself still has to be communicated clearly, with reasons and with a deadline. Empathy does not replace direction.
Does empathy weaken a leader’s authority?
No. What weakens authority is a lack of clarity. A leader who listens and then makes an unambiguous decision gains credibility. One who listens and then makes no decision loses it. Why Haltung heute wichtiger ist als Macht is something we have described in more detail elsewhere.
How do you learn to give unpleasant feedback?
Through repetition in a protected setting. In coaching we work with concrete situations from your leadership practice, formulate the feedback and examine its effect. Whether that is better placed in a one-to-one setting or in a group is answered by the comparison between individual coaching or a seminar.
Can empathetic leadership be trained?
The ability to take another person’s perspective can be trained. The willingness to actually do so day to day is a question of stance. That is why leadership begins with stance, not with technique.
Conclusion: empathetic leadership needs clarity
Ted Lasso would be an outstanding head of culture. A hard-nosed managing director he is not. Being both at once is the real requirement for leadership in top management: allowing closeness without losing clarity.
If you would like to sharpen this balance for your own leadership role, arrange a free initial consultation.
