Many people assume empathy is something you either have or you don't. It's not.
Empathy is a skill, and like any skill, you build it through practice.
Researcher Dr. Teresa Wiseman, whose work Brené Brown has done a lot to popularize, identified four attributes of empathy.
Brown draws a sharp line between empathy and sympathy: sympathy often creates distance, while empathy creates connection.
The Four Attributes of Empathy
- Perspective-taking: seeing a situation the way the other person sees it, not the way you'd see it from their perspective.
- Staying out of judgment: resisting the urge to evaluate whether their reaction is reasonable before you've fully understood it.
- Recognizing emotion in another person: identifying what someone is actually feeling, not just what they're saying.
- Communicating that recognition: showing the person you see what they're feeling, out loud, instead of assuming they already know.
All four matter.
Skip the last one and the first three stay invisible.
You can understand someone completely and still leave them feeling unseen if you never say so.
This is also why Empathetic is one of the six C.H.A.N.G.E. Traits® we teach leaders.
It's not a soft skill sitting off to the side of change work.
It's one of the traits that determines whether people trust you enough to move through change with you.
Stay Curious About Others
Instead of trying to fix or control what someone else is feeling, get curious about it.
What is this person actually experiencing right now?
What would it feel like to be in their position?
This sounds obvious. It's harder than it sounds, especially under pressure, because the instinct is usually to solve the problem in front of you rather than sit with the feeling behind it.
A colleague comes to you frustrated about a decision, and your first move is to explain why you made it.
The empathetic move is to first understand what the frustration is actually about, which is sometimes the decision itself and sometimes something else entirely.
Stay Curious About Yourself
The second, less obvious step is getting curious about your own emotions.
When you can name what you're feeling with real specificity- not just "fine" or "frustrated," but the actual texture of the emotion- you build a richer internal vocabulary.
That vocabulary becomes the tool you use to recognize the same emotions in other people.
Try replacing generic labels with more specific ones.
Instead of "stressed," is it overwhelm, resentment, or fear of falling behind? Instead of "annoyed," is it disrespected, dismissed, or just tired?
The more precisely you can identify your own emotional states, the faster you'll recognize them in someone else, and the more authentic your response will be when you do.
Empathy Is Not Agreement
One of the biggest blocks to practicing empathy at work is the fear that understanding someone's feelings means endorsing their conclusion.
It doesn't.
You can fully understand why a team member is angry about a decision without agreeing the decision was wrong.
"I hear that this feels unfair, and I understand why" is a complete sentence.
It doesn't require "and you're right" at the end.
Leaders who confuse empathy with agreement tend to avoid empathy altogether, because they're afraid of what it commits them to.
It doesn't commit you to anything except understanding.
A Simple Daily Practice
Pick one conversation a day where your only goal is to understand, not to respond.
Don't plan your reply while the other person is still talking.
Ask one follow-up question before you offer your own view. Notice what emotion is underneath what they're saying, and if it feels right, name it out loud.
This is a small habit. It compounds fast, because most people go through an entire day without anyone doing this for them.
Why This Matters at Work
- Teams led by emotionally attuned managers report higher trust.
- Empathetic communication reduces the chance that a hard message gets misread as an attack.
- People who feel understood engage more, even during difficult change.
- Empathy at the top of an organization tends to set the tone for how the whole team treats each other.
Empathy isn't a personality trait you either have or don't. It's a practice. Start with one conversation this week where your only goal is to understand, not to respond.
If you want to build empathy as a practiced skill across your whole team, not just as a personal habit, the Change Growth Accelerator™ teaches all six C.H.A.N.G.E. Traits®, including empathy, as skills leaders can build on purpose.
