On 8 Apr 2025, I ran a workshop on ‘Leading with high Emotional Intelligence’ for a small group of team members, team leaders, and even a Head of Department.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has been around since 1995, when Professor Daniel Goleman introduced his EQ model as an alternative indicator of personal and professional success, as compared to the traditional Intelligent Quotient (IQ) approach.

One of the most important aspects of EQ is Empathy.

Now, Empathy has been mentioned by academic journals and in the mainstream as a must have for leaders. So much as that it is a subject that is even taught in schools (https://shorturl.at/eLr1P).

From a general point of view, Empathy is ‘putting yourself in someone else’s shoes’.

However, from a leadership point of view, we need to go deeper.

This is what I have been using in my work.

Basically, Empathy is not one thing, but actually made up of 8 aspects:

1. Sense
2. Imagine
3. Mirror
4. Identify
5. Understand
6. See
7. Listen
8. Feel

And in many cases, we can use these different aspects on these 5 areas:

1. Emotions
2. Thoughts / Thinking
3. Points of view
4. What is said
5. Feelings

When you apply the 8 aspects into the 5 areas, and the words can be used and combined multiple times, then you create a much more robust use of Empathy in Leadership.

For example:

You can:

• ‘Imagine’ Emotions / Thoughts / Thinking / Points of view / What is said / Feelings.
• ‘Understand’ Emotions / Thoughts / Thinking / Points of view / What is said / Feelings.
• ‘See’ Emotions / Feelings

All three are different, yet interrelated. By doing this, it adds so much more depth to Empathy (which is part of EQ) than just ‘putting yourself in someone else’s shoes’.

Now you know where ‘Empathetic leaders’ come from.

What do you think?

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