Why Empathy is Often Problematic in Leadership
Both Too Much and Too Little, Empathy as a Leadership Strength and a Leadership Risk
Empathy is often positioned as a core leadership strength.But research suggests it can also create problems when it is over-relied on, underused, or not balanced with perspective-taking, boundaries, and action (Bakker et al., 2024; Veronneau, 2024).
In leadership contexts, empathy appears to be most effective when it is regulated and applied in ways that support both human connection and task clarity (Bakker et al., 2024). So the issue is not whether empathy is good or bad. It is how empathy is understood, applied, and balanced in practice.
What Do We Mean by Empathy and Compassion?
Empathy is the capacity to understand and/or share another person’s emotional state, either by taking their perspective or resonating with their feelings (Decety & Jackson, 2004).
In practice, empathy can involve:
Affective empathy: feeling what someone else feels
Cognitive empathy: understanding what someone else is experiencing
Compassion, by contrast, is awareness of another person’s suffering combined with a desire to relieve it, making it more action-oriented (Goetz et al., 2010; Neff, 2003).
In simple terms; Empathy helps us feel or understand and Compassion helps us respond and act. This distinction becomes important in leadership, where understanding without action or action without understanding can both create problems.
Similarities and differences between compassion fatigue and empathy fatigue
Both compassion fatigue and empathy fatigue involve emotional depletion from repeated exposure to other people’s distress, and both can lead to exhaustion, withdrawal, and reduced effectiveness (Figley, 1995; CMHA, 2022). In both cases, the person may feel less able to keep engaging with others in a caring way over time (Figley, 1995; BetterUp, 2021).
The difference is that empathy fatigue is usually described as fatigue from feeling too much becoming emotionally overwhelmed by other people’s pain or distress (CMHA, 2022; Calm, 2026). Compassion fatigue is usually described as fatigue from giving too much continuing to care, support, and help others until the helper becomes emotionally exhausted (Figley, 1995; CMHA, 2022).
A simple way to think about it is:
Empathy fatigue = emotional overload from absorbing others’ feelings (Calm, 2026; CMHA, 2022).
Compassion fatigue = exhaustion from sustained helping and caregiving (Figley, 1995; CMHA, 2022).
When There Is Too Much Empathy
Too much empathy can pull leaders into other people’s distress, making it harder to:
Sustain boundaries
Hold accountability
Make difficult or necessary decisions
Research on compassion fatigue shows that repeated exposure to others’ suffering can contribute to emotional exhaustion and reduced capacity to help effectively (Compassion fatigue in helping professions: A scoping literature review, 2025). However, the evidence suggests that this is not simply about “too much compassion.” It is more accurately linked to forms of empathy that involve emotional over-identification or unregulated affective responses.
For example:
Affective empathy has been found to be positively associated with compassion fatigue (Huang et al., 2023)
Self-oriented empathy is linked to greater emotional exhaustion, particularly when not balanced by regulation or support (Zhang et al., 2021)
This suggests that emotionally absorbing other people’s experiences can become draining, particularly in high-demand environments. In leadership, this can look like:
Avoiding accountability to protect someone’s experience
Losing clarity on expectations and responsibility
Becoming distracted by how people feel rather than what needs to happen
The leader remains human, but their capacity to lead effectively is reduced.
When There Is Too Little Empathy
Too little empathy creates a different set of problems.
Leaders may become overly focused on tasks while missing:
Relational dynamics
Emotional context
Lived experiences shaping behaviour and performance
Research suggests that empathic communication can support collaboration, inclusion, and engagement, particularly in diverse environments (Bakker et al., 2024). But this requires leaders to: 1. Work across different lived experiences and realities and 2. Avoid assuming a single shared perspective.
Without this, leaders may:
Misread what is driving behaviour
Disconnect from motivation and engagement
Focus on outputs while missing underlying causes
Work gets done, but not in a way that people can sustain or commit to.
Compassion Fatigue and “Empathy Fatigue”: What the Research Actually Shows
There is increasing discussion about whether compassion fatigue is actually “empathy fatigue.” The research does not suggest they are the same thing.But it does show that certain types of empathy are strongly associated with compassion fatigue, particularly affective and self-oriented empathy (Huang et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2021).
For example:
Affective empathy increases risk of compassion fatigue
Cognitive empathy appears to reduce that risk (Huang et al., 2023)
Social support can mediate the relationship between empathy and fatigue in clinical settings (Social support, empathy, and compassion fatigue among clinical nurses, 2023)
This suggests the issue is not empathy in general, but:
The type of empathy being used
Whether it is emotionally regulated
Whether it is supported by boundaries and perspective-taking
So rather than saying compassion fatigue is simply empathy fatigue, it is more accurate to say: Compassion fatigue is closely related to empathic distress, particularly when empathy becomes emotionally overtaxing and unregulated.
The Leadership Tension: People and Performance
So the real issue is not empathy itself.It is how empathy is understood, applied, and balanced in leadership (Bakker et al., 2024; Veronneau, 2024).
Too much empathy = distracted by feelingsToo little empathy = distracted by task
Neither supports effective leadership. Effective leadership is not about choosing between people or performance.It is about working with both at the same time (Bakker et al., 2024).
This means:
Staying connected to people without losing clarity on what needs to happen
Holding accountability without dismissing lived experience
Understanding perspectives without becoming overwhelmed by them
So what should you do?
Empathy feels like good leadership. But unbalanced empathy can reduce leadership effectiveness. Leaders do not just need to feel. They need to function, decide, and act in complex, real-world environments. And that requires more than empathy alone. It requires Compassionate Accountability, a guiding value we use at ELIS Advantage.
Where do you see this showing up in your leadership too much empathy or too little? And what changes when you try to work with both people and performance at the same time?”
If you want to explore this further, I go deeper into this in Inclusive Leadership: Navigating Organisational Complexity.
References
Bakker, A. B., et al. (2024). Has empathy really become more important to leadership since the COVID-19 pandemic? Information for Practice. https://ifp.nyu.edu/2024/journal-article-abstracts/cpb0000273/
BetterUp. (2021, June 20). Empathy fatigue and compassion fatigue: What are they? https://www.betterup.com/blog/empathy-and-compassion-fatigue
Calm. (2026, January 19). What is empathy fatigue? And how to spot the signs early. https://www.calm.com/blog/empathy-fatigue
Canadian Mental Health Association. (2022, July 7). Empathy and compassion fatigue. https://cmha.ca/news/empathy-and-compassion-fatigue/
Compassion fatigue in helping professions: A scoping literature review. (2025). PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11980338/
Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534582304267187
Figley, C. R. (1995). Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. Brunner/Mazel.
Goetz, J. L., Keltner, D., & Simon-Thomas, E. (2010). Compassion: An evolutionary analysis and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 136(3), 351–374. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018807
Huang, X., et al. (2023). Effects of affective and cognitive empathy on compassion fatigue: Mediated moderation effects of emotion regulation capability. Personality and Individual Differences. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886923001873
Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309032
Social support, empathy and compassion fatigue among clinical nurses: Structural equation modeling. (2023). PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10644455/
Veronneau, C. (2024). Redefining leadership: The critical edge of perspective-taking versus empathy. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/redefining-leadership-critical-edge-versus-empathy-veroneau-ms-ido1c
Zhang, Y., et al. (2021). Self-oriented empathy and compassion fatigue: The serial mediation of dispositional mindfulness and counselor’s self-efficacy. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.613908/full