Dive Brief:
- Despite the emphasis on empathy as an important aspect of good leadership, managers may find a certain level of emotional detachment helpful, particularly in environments where difficult calls are routine, according to new research from resume template provider Zety and human resources service firm Sigma Assessment Systems.
- The Empathy in Management Report analyzed almost 20 years of Sigma’s proprietary Jackson Personality Inventory-Revised, or JPI-R, personality tests and found that managers scored lower than the general population across what the study called “the Emotional cluster,” which measured emotional sensitivity through empathy, anxiety and cooperativeness categories.
- While the research noted differences across industries, the report found that even the highest-scoring manager groups, such as those in health, medicine and HR fields, still scored below the population average. Construction and wholesale/retail trade managers ranked the lowest.
Dive Insight:
The study looked at data from more than 4,000 managers and found that lower emotional sensitivity was common across leadership positions in every field.
“Among JPI-R’s five clusters, the Emotional cluster stood out as the only area where managers scored below the general population (50th percentile) across all traits,” the study said.
Men tended to score lower than women in terms of emotional sensitivity, and the study noted that some job sectors tend to be dominated by men. But managers still scored lower in empathy even when accounting for gender.
“These differences suggest that the interpersonal and operational demands of each industry may influence the level of emotional responsiveness required in leadership roles,” the report said.
The report noted that the overall patterns it highlighted tend to reflect the realities of management, “where leaders are regularly required to make difficult, high-stakes decisions.”
While managers’ scores point to composure, independence and lower stress reactivity, the report said that the “same qualities that enable tough decisions can also create distance,” because leaders “with lower emotional sensitivity may appear less approachable or miss early signs of team concerns, making it important to balance decisiveness with active listening and regular engagement.”
More than a quarter of employees surveyed said their organization was unempathetic, according to a June report from benefits and HR technology company Businessolver. Employees who saw their workplace as unempathetic also reported higher toxicity and more mental health issues.
