Empathy in Leadership: A Guide to Emotional Intelligence

Empathy in Leadership A Guide to Emotional Intelligence

In today’s fast-paced, ever-evolving workplace, leaders are expected to do more than just technical experts, they are required to understand, inspire, and connect with their teams on a human level. This is why emotional intelligence (EQ) and empathy are essential skills. Empathy fosters trust, collaboration, and resilience, and enabling leaders to navigate the complexities of human behaviour.

As psychologist Daniel Goleman said,

“What really matters for success, character, happiness and lifelong achievements is a definite set of emotional skills—your EQ—not just purely cognitive abilities that are measured by conventional IQ tests.”

But what exactly is emotional intelligence, and how does empathy fit into the picture?

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence, often referred to as EQ (emotional quotient), is the ability to recognise, understand, and manage both your own emotions and the emotions of others. It's a skill set that allows leaders to connect with their teams on a more personal level, improving communication, reducing conflict, and boosting team morale. EQ consists of five key components:

1. Self-awareness – Understanding your own emotions, strengths, and limitations.

2. Self-regulation – Managing your emotions, especially in stressful or challenging situations.

3. Motivation – Maintaining drive and optimism, even in the face of setbacks.

4. Empathy – Recognising and understanding the emotions of others.

5. Social skills – Building and managing relationships, effectively communicating, and resolving conflicts.

While all five components are important, empathy plays a unique role in leadership by directly influencing how you interact with others. Empathetic leaders can put themselves in their people's shoes, to better understand their concerns, motivations, and challenges. This creates a more supportive and inclusive work environment.

Why Emotional Intelligence and Empathy Matter in Leadership

Stronger Relationships

Leaders with high emotional intelligence foster open communication and trust. They understand the importance of making genuine connections with their team, which helps create a collaborative and supportive culture. Teams led by emotionally intelligent leaders tend to feel more valued and are therefore more engaged and motivated to perform well.

Improved Decision-Making

Emotional intelligence enables leaders to make well-rounded decisions that consider not just the facts but also the emotions and perspectives of others. This allows them to take a more holistic view of situations, resulting in better decisions that are more likely to be embraced by the team.

Better Conflict Resolution

When conflict arises, emotionally intelligent leaders use their empathy and social skills to navigate the situation calmly and fairly. They can step back, manage their own emotional reactions, and understand the emotions of those involved. This results in quicker, more amicable resolutions and prevents tensions from escalating.

Increased Employee Satisfaction

Empathy in leadership leads to a more positive and inclusive workplace culture. Employees are more likely to stay loyal to leaders who understand their needs and support their growth. When team members feel seen and heard, their job satisfaction and productivity rise.

Resilience in Tough Times

Leaders face challenges daily, from managing tight deadlines to navigating company crises. Emotionally intelligent leaders are better equipped to handle these challenges, remaining calm under pressure while providing steady support to their teams. Their empathy allows them to acknowledge the stress their team may be experiencing and respond with compassion.

How to become an emotionally intelligent leader

The great news is that emotional intelligence and empathy aren’t fixed traits—they can be developed and strengthened with intentional practice. Here’s how you can enhance these skills:

1. Cultivate Self-Awareness

The first step in developing emotional intelligence is to become more aware of your own emotions and how they influence your behaviour. Regularly check in with yourself: How are you feeling? How are these feelings impacting your decisions and interactions with others? Journaling or meditation can be helpful tools for increasing self-awareness.

2. Practice Active Listening

Listening is a core component of empathy. When a team member is speaking to you, give them your full attention. Avoid interrupting or planning your response while they are talking. Instead, focus on understanding their perspective and feelings. After they’ve finished speaking, paraphrase what they said to ensure you’ve fully understood.

3. Manage Your Emotions

Emotional regulation is crucial in leadership. Practice techniques that help you stay calm in stressful situations, whether that’s taking deep breaths, stepping away for a few moments, or reframing your thoughts. Leaders who can manage their emotions effectively are better at making thoughtful decisions and avoiding emotional reactions that could harm team dynamics.

4. Show Empathy in Action

Empathy isn’t just about understanding—it’s about acting on that understanding. If a team member is struggling, offer your support. This could mean helping them re-prioritise tasks, offering additional resources, or simply giving them a listening ear. Small actions that show you care about your team’s well-being can have a big impact.

5. Provide Constructive Feedback with Care

Feedback is a critical part of leadership, but it’s important to deliver it in a way that’s constructive and compassionate. Consider how the other person might feel and frame your feedback in a way that encourages growth rather than defensiveness. Balancing honesty with empathy helps maintain trust and respect in your relationships.

6. Build Emotional Resilience

Developing emotional intelligence doesn’t mean you won’t experience negative emotions—it means you’ll be better equipped to handle them. Building emotional resilience involves recognising your emotional triggers and practising self-regulation techniques, so you’re prepared to navigate challenges and stress without becoming overwhelmed.

7. Encourage Empathy in Your Team

As a leader, you have the opportunity to model and foster empathy within your team. Encourage team members to understand each other’s perspectives, whether during a disagreement or while collaborating on a project. Empathy within the team enhances collaboration, creativity, and mutual respect.

The Benefits of Leading with Emotional Intelligence and Empathy

When leaders prioritise emotional intelligence and empathy, they create workplaces where people feel understood, valued, and motivated. In the long run, this leads to:

• Increased employee retention: Team members are more likely to stay loyal to empathetic leaders.

• Higher team performance: A supportive environment allows employees to thrive and perform at their best.

• Stronger company culture: Emotionally intelligent leadership fosters a culture of trust, respect, and collaboration.

• Better overall outcomes: When employees feel heard and supported, they are more engaged, productive, and innovative.

Today, leadership demands more than just technical expertise, emotional intelligence and empathy have emerged as crucial qualities for success. These skills enable leaders to build stronger relationships, foster trust, and create a positive and productive work environment.

Leading with emotional intelligence and empathy isn’t just a modern leadership trend—it’s the future of sustainable and effective leadership.

How to: Reflective Goal Setting for a Succesful 2024

Reflective Goal Setting for a Succesful 2024 - A How to Guide

The end of the year and the festive break is a natural time to pause and reflect on the past year and consider the year ahead, both for you as an individual and for your business and team. 

Time off work over Christmas is the perfect pause we need to take time to step back from the busyness of our daily lives, to reflect on what is important to us and to set the tone for the year ahead. I encourage you to set aside time to reflect and plan - individually or with your colleagues.

This article explores the benefits of reflective goal setting for both our personal and business success and growth. Read on to find some useful prompts to reflect, grow self-awareness, and clarify your hopes, ambitions and plans for the year ahead.

The power of reflection

Reflection is a powerful tool to find closure on the things that have happened over the last 12 months - personally and professionally.

Reflection isn’t just a retrospective exercise - it will pave the way for setting impactful goals and steering yourself or your businesses toward success in 2024. By increasing your self-awareness, you will be able will be able to move into 2024 stronger and more confident.

As the motivational speaker Ed Foreman says “If we always do what we’ve always done, then we’re going to get what we’ve always got.” So building self-awareness helps to identify patterns that may be keeping you stuck.

Reflecting on everything you have achieved over the last year encourages you (individually or collectively) to celebrate successes. While acknowledging challenges and failures, helps to develop a growth mindset - in other words, to look for opportunities to change and improve.

If there are things that didn’t go so well or that you feel were failures - try to shift your perspective to recognise what you learned from the experience. Changing our perspective allows us to release old patterns, that no longer serve us - try to see things from through fresh eyes. Try not to take the role of victim and things happening TO us, - we can’t control other people, but we can control how we respond. So put yourself in the driving seat, empower yourself and take responsibility for making things happen or making changes in the year ahead.

Once you’re reflected, it’s time to think to the future - dream big and plan your year ahead.

The benefit of setting goals

• Enhanced Clarity and Focus: Goal setting helps to clarify priorities and focus on achieving them.

• Adaptability and Resilience: By learning from past experiences, you will become more adaptable and resilient in the face of challenges.

• Increased Motivation: Clear goals derived from reflection provide motivation and a sense of purpose, driving you and your to perform at their best.

How to reflect on the past and set goals for the future

Change your Perspective

Take yourself out of your usual environment - that’s why using the holiday period is valuable because we are free from the usual pressures of work. If you are doing this exercise for your business and with colleagues - get out of the office - go for a team walk, or go and talk over a coffee or lunch.

Get outdoors 

Personally, I find time outside - walking, running, cycling or just strolling and chatting with a friend, encourages our brains to slow down. It helps us to feel grounded, and gain perspective - reassessing our worries, enabling us to see the bigger picture and recognise what really matters.

Remove Distractions

Create the time and space to do this free of distractions - turn off your phone Focus on your breathing for a few minutes before you start to slow your brain down and bring yourself to the present moment.

Write it down

The process can be a gentle reflective thought process, making notes for yourself or having a discussion with colleagues. I recommend putting pen to paper, it helps to frame the reflections and make your goals concrete. There’s plenty of research that proves that people who write down their goals and objectives are more successful in achieving them.

Business and Team Goals

If you are setting goals for your business or team involve them in the process, and make it a collaborative process to foster a collective commitment. Communicate your grand vision and ask them what theirs is. Agree shared objectives and what everyone’s role is in achieving them. Set milestones and celebrate small successes along the way.

Steps to Reflect and Set Goals for 2024.

1. Start by reviewing the past year.

• Reflect on some or all of the following:
  - your personal and family life

  - your career

  - your wellness, work-life balance and how you have looked after your mental and physical health

• What have been the highlights of your year? 

• What made you happy this year and when were you happiest?

• What are you most grateful for?

• What have been your biggest successes? - try and come up with at least three. 

• What are you most proud of?

• How did you achieve these successes? 

• What’s the biggest risk you took? What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned?

• Identify Lessons Learned

• Is there anything that you didn’t achieve or that you feel you failed at?

• What were the biggest challenges of the year?

• How did you react and cope in the face of these challenges

• What have you learned as a result?

• Is there anything you wish you could have done differently — forgive yourself and leave it behind.

2. Set Goals for 2024

• Start with the end of in mind - your vision - where would you like to be this time next year? 

• Dream your biggest dream. If you could wave a magic wand what would you like to happen?

• What would you like to be celebrating 12 months from now - a new job? A new home? A new business launch?

• What really matters to you? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

• What are the things that make you happy and you need to prioritise this year?

• What should you start doing more of? (e.g. exercising, seeing family, learning something new)

• What should you do less of? (e.g. kicking a bad habit, being less hard on yourself)

• What challenges might there be along the way?

• How can I try to overcome these challenges?

• Who do you need help from and what other resources might you need?

• How will you look after your well-being - your mental and physical health? Are there new boundaries or habits you want to establish - e.g. making more time for exercise or eating better, or setting new boundaries e.g. being disciplined about not checking work emails during your time off?

 3. Define Clear Objectives

With the insights gained, define clear, achievable objectives for the upcoming year. These goals should be SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. They should align with the company’s mission and vision, driving growth and progress.

Next write down the specific tasks and actions you need to make these goals happen.

In Summary

• Use the holidays too make time to unplug, switch off and reflect on the year we’re about to leave behind.

• Let go of anything that was difficult or challenging, but take what you learned with you.

• Consider what you want to achieve in the year ahead.

• Set some time-frames and measures for success.

• Write it all down somewhere you won’t lose it and pull it out monthly or at least a few times during the year ahead to see how you are getting on.

• Celebrate the small steps and milestones along the way and don’t be too hard on yourself about things that don’t go to plan.

For more ideas on Reflective Goal Setting have a look at my Tips for 2025 >

My Personal Reflections

As I write this, I have looked back at the goals I set myself on New Year’s Eve last year - many of them have come to fruition - I have established my coaching and leadership development business and have worked with some fantastic individuals and businesses.

I found the courage to resign from a contract that this time last year, was filling me with dread and making me very unhappy, however well paid it was!

I am in the process of buying my own home and moving to Bristol to start a new life.
I have a nearly 365-day streak of learning Spanish on Duolingo!

I supported my son through A-levels and starting university.

I’ve been to dozens of gigs and a handful of music festivals.

And I have spent more time with family, old friends and made lots of new friends too.

Now, I wonder what I’m going to set as my goals for 2024…

"Hospitality is the "Power of Human Connection" - Dame Karen Jones

Inspiring words from Dame Karen Jones, chair of both the Hawksmoor and Mowgli restaurant chains, senior independent director at Deliveroo and who founded casual dining chain Café Rouge in 1989. During the Pandemic, she worked closely with ministers and was the only hospitality representative on the government's Build Back Better business council. She was made a dame in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2022 for her services to business and the hospitality industry.

People are at the heart of every hospitality business.

Karen Jones spoke at the Propel Hospitality Talent & Training Conference on Tuesday she said:

Hospitality is the lynch pin of society. We realised how much we missed it during lock down.

She reminded us that the holy grail of hospitality is:

The power of the moment of human connection that keeps your customers coming back again and again.

When asked about what attracted her to working in hospitality she said it was the

• Excitement hospitality can give

• The pleasure of looking after people

• Lovely colleagues who are fun, high energy, innovative and entrepreneurial

She went on to talk about that elusive "hospitality gene" found in people who just get the excitement and buzz of hospitality and love the pleasure of looking after people. The million dollar question is: is the hospitality gene innate or can you teach it? Karen Jones believes that you can. An employer needs to explain what hospitality is all about - the hard technical skills and soft communication skills can be learned later.

The Importance of Culture

Culture is hard to define she said, it’s more complex than “your people just doing the right things when people are looking.”

Culture is that feeling it gives you.

She defined CULTURE as the 'feeling it gives you' built on 4 pillars:

1. Being clear about the culture you want to create and knowing and communicating your values.

2. Genuinely caring about your people. Remember everyone is different: different backgrounds, different outlooks and with different ambitions. Culture is about trying to weld them into a whole through daily decisions that strengthen not weaken the culture.

3. Not expecting people to do things in their work life that they wouldn’t do in their personal life

4. Always delivering on what you say you will.

How to define your Values to build Culture

Karen Jones emphasised that your values have to be what you genuinely believe in. Values should be driven by the business founders or leaders, not outsourced to a consultant. Create a Mission and Vision statement that communicates your purpose and values. This is the time for leaders to be quite direct - your team need something to hang their hat on.

Keep your values simple and easy to articulate. If you can't remember them or say them clearly, they're too long and complicated. Use the one-sentence test! Can you say what you stand for in one simple sentence?

You know your values have caught fire when people start using them and talking about them. Then they start to drive behaviours.

4 Crucial Factors to Retaining Employees

Building on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Karen Jones identified four blocks to retention, without these things you will never get people to stay in your business.

1. PAY - You can’t do a good job if you are worrying about how you are going to pay the rent.

2. SAFETY & SECURITY - If I do well will I be secure?

3. WORK LIFE BALANCE - long hours and low pay are the worst things. Our cognitive ability is affected by stress and the main causes of stress are fair pay and scheduling.

4. CAREER ADVANCEMENT - how do I get my foot on the next rung of the ladder?

Shift Your Perspective

Shift your perspective

Moments of high stress can warp your perception of reality, making you feel like the world is out to get you.

Our brains are hard-wired to sense threat and tend to overreact in stressful situations.

Changing perspective allows us to release thinking patterns that no longer serve us and to see the world through fresh eyes. 

What can you gain from looking at things another way?

Imagine you are a fly on the wall, or a bird in the sky - how would things look from up there?

HOW TO SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE

• Stop and notice how you feel.

•  Accept that feeling, don't push it away.

• Create distance by naming it out loud or writing it down.

• Change your surroundings.

• Breathe

• Ask yourself how much this will matter in a month, what about a year?

• What are you grateful for?

• What would your wisest most supportive friend say about this?

• What's a different way to see it?

• Now move forward.

How to manage stress & build resilience

How do you deal with stress and build personal resilience?

Are things getting too much at work or at home, or juggling work and home life?

The first step is to be aware of when things are getting on top of you and stress levels are rising.

You might start feeling resentful, you might notice things are keeping you awake at night, or impact your mood more than they should. Do you find yourself complaining about things to family and friends? Have you tried asking for support or a change to find nothing improves?

When this happens it’s time to start to focus on your well-being.

What’s within your control?

You can’t control your emotions, but you can start to be aware of them and choose how to respond. If you’re under a lot of pressure, become aware of how much time and energy you spend worrying about things you can’t control. This will help you to reduce feelings of overwhelm or uselessness.

• What is within your control?

• What can you influence?

• Let go of the things that you can’t control or change.

Tips to manage stress At Work

1. Take breaks, even if it’s just for a walk around the block.

2. Remember to have fun. Laughter makes us feel good.

3. When you feel stressed, step away for a moment and focus on your breath.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when things get too much. You don’t have to do it alone.

5. If it’s getting too much, is there someone you can talk to? If not your manager, a colleague, a partner, a friend?

Tips to look after yourself At home:

1. Make time to get outside - fresh air and sunlight are good for our health and our brains.

2. Find some form of exercise that you enjoy and can make a habit, it doesn’t have to be running a marathon, it could just be a short walk.

3. Build good bedtime routines to promote good sleep.

4. Make time for your friends and family, connecting with other people is vital to our wellbeing.

5. Just do NOTHING sometimes.

Is it time to review your purpose for the year ahead?

Is it time to review your purpose for the year ahead?
The Christmas holidays and the start of the New Year are a time when we all tend to think about what matters most to us, we reevaluate and set ourselves ambitions for the year ahead. 

As business leaders, it's a good time to do the same for our business, not least because this is a time when your employees often decide "New Year, New Job... and in this recruitment crisis you probably want them to stick with you.

A clearly articulated purpose achieves two things:

• Defines and clarifies your strategic objectives

• Inspires and motivates your team and gives meaning to what they do

Do you have a clearly defined purpose?

Putting man on the moon

There's a frequently quoted story (it may be apocryphal) about a cleaner at NASA being asked on a visit by President John F Kennedy what his job was. His answer: "I'm helping to put a man on the moon."

Why it matters

Studies have shown that companies with a well-articulated purpose have lower turnover rates and higher levels of employee engagement. They: Attract and retain the best people Boost productivity Improve morale and engagement

Reality... we're not there yet

According a 2019 survey of over 540 worldwide businesses by Strategy&, PWC:

• More than half weren’t even “somewhat” motivated, passionate, or excited about their job 

• 28% reported feeling fully connected to their company’s purpose. 

• 39% said they could clearly see the value they create, 

• 22% agreed that their jobs allow them to fully leverage their strengths 

• 34% thought they strongly contribute to their company’s success.

What goes wrong?

Too often purpose statements are generic, non-specific and lack authenticity, which leads to : a lack of direction, people feeling lost, disengaement and low motivation How can your team help your business to achieve its goals, if they don't know where they fit in?

Ask yourself

• Why do we exist? 

• What value are we giving our customers? 

• How and why are we unique? 

• Could someone differentiate our purpose from our competitors? 

• Could our team say what it is?

Live & Breathe it

Defining your purpose is just the beginning. If you can't live and breathe it, it's worthless. So make sure it's relevant, and achievable, and that you and your employees have the resources they need to deliver it.