new perspectives on empathy and leadership: an empirical study
DESCRIPTION
A presentation by Joan Marques, Svetlana Holt, and Jenny Hu at the Woodbury University Colloquium series.TRANSCRIPT
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New Perspectives on Empathy and Leadership: An Empirical Study
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Background: A Striking observation
• Growing interest in the leadership vs. management topic
• Classroom dialogues on what makes an effective leader
• Longitudinal survey of essential leadership qualities: Whom would you follow?
• A striking finding through the survey of undergraduate respondents
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Background, cont.: Empathy is the last thing leaders need to be effective
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Background, Cont.: Literature review• Business leaders
– are encouraged to be narcissistic (innovation, charisma, vision)– often lean toward psychopathic behavior
• superficially charming, grandiose, deceitful, remorseless, antisocial, irresponsible, impulsive, void of empathy, lacking goals, and poor in behavioral controls.
• Business students– are more focused on self-interest than students in other disciplines– of all business areas, finance students are least empathetic and most narcissistic – cheat more (50% higher rate of cheating than any other major)– are less cooperative – are more likely to conceal instructors’ mistakes– are less willing to yield /more likely to defect in bargaining games.
• Business schools – still focus too much on academic and social skill sets toward a competitive world– Focus too little on inter-human, or “softer”, skills.
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Background, cont.: more literature review
• Importance of empathy in leadership– Large number of scholars confirm the need for empathy and
ethical behavior in leaders
• Empathy can be developed– 2006 study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience– Eriksen (2009): Self awareness exercises in class– Izenberg (2007): empathy, optimism and resilience can be
taught in the classroom – Devay (2010): religious and spiritual practices, such as
meditation– Mahsud, Yukl, and Prussia (2009): management
development programs and executive coaching
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Background, cont.: JBE article
• Empathy in leadership article
04/10/2023 Joan and Svetlana's Research 6
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Data Analysis
• SAS: Business Analysis & Business Intelligence• 2008-2013–Mean– Standard Deviation– Range– Coefficient of Variation– Trends– Spearman Correlation
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The Overview
Empathy Service Intelligence Competence Charisma Courage Integrity Vision Passion Responsibility0.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
50.00
60.00
2008-2013 Averages
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
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Basic Descriptive Statistics
2008-2013 Mean St. Dev. C.V. Min Max
Empathy 7.90 1.90 24.07% 1 10
Service 8.21 1.76 21.41% 1 10
Intelligence 8.26 1.41 17.12% 4 10
Competence 8.39 1.42 16.88% 3 10
Charisma 8.48 1.55 18.29% 3 10
Courage 8.73 1.44 16.48% 2 10
Integrity 8.90 1.50 16.87% 2 10
Vision 8.97 1.37 15.32% 5 10
Passion 9.32 1.06 11.40% 3 10
Responsibility 9.36 0.99 10.53% 4 10
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The Lower Five
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20136.00
6.50
7.00
7.50
8.00
8.50
9.00
9.50
Empathy Service Intelligence Competence Charisma
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The Upper Five
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20136.00
6.50
7.00
7.50
8.00
8.50
9.00
9.50
10.00
Courage Integrity Vision Passion Responsibility
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Spearman Correlation
Intelligence Charisma Responsibility Vision Integrity Passion Courage Empathy Competence Service
Intelligence1.0000
Charisma0.3141 1.0000
< 0.0001
Responsibility0.3078 0.1909 1.0000
< 0.0001 0.0173
Vision0.2922 0.2562 0.3171 1.0000 0.0002 0.0013 < 0.0001
Integrity0.4317 0.356 0.3485 0.3419 1.0000
< 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001
Passion0.2485 0.3276 0.3302 0.3387 0.3211 1.0000 0.0018 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001
Courage0.2967 0.3108 0.2602 0.3809 0.2956 0.5006 1.0000 0.0002 < 0.0001 0.0011 < 0.0001 0.0002 < 0.0001
Empathy0.4587 0.4079 0.3057 0.4027 0.4531 0.3811 0.3805 1.0000
< 0.0001 < 0.0001 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001
Competence0.4301 0.3851 0.2801 0.2076 0.3590 0.1750 0.1970 0.4217 1.0000
< 0.0001 < 0.0001 0.0004 0.0095 < 0.0001 0.0295 0.014 < 0.0001
Service0.3894 0.2383 0.3354 0.2942 0.3283 0.3659 0.4197 0.5674 0.3588 1.0000
< 0.0001 0.0028 < 0.0001 0.0002 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001 < 0.0001
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3rd lowest ranked leadership value: INTELLIGENCE: – Students consider intelligence one of the lesser important values for
leaders. Why? – Possible answers:
• People like to relate to their leaders. Intelligence may not be the trademark of an average person.
• Intelligences may pertain to multiple fields: intellectual, emotional (interpersonal, intrapersonal), etc.
• Other thoughts?
2nd lowest ranked leadership value: SERVICE: – Why would service be considered of so little importance to leadership?– Possible answers:
• Service is multi-interpretable: may pertain to the “service industry”, the acts of “supporting”, “facilitating,” or “helping”, or to “servant leadership”.
• Other thoughts?
The low ranks“Empathy, Service and Intelligence have been ranked lower than most other categories, with Empathy often being the lowest” (Hu, 2013).
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Lowest ranked leadership value: EMPATHY: Why has empathy been (almost) consistently ranked lowest of all leadership values?
– “The following eight codes, or reasons why empathy may not be considered important in leaders, were identified:1. Empathy interferes with (rational and ethical) decision making 2. Empathy may be perceived as a sign of weakness3. Too little life/work experience to recognize empathy as a powerful leadership tool in
action4. Respondents (wrongly) tend to disassociate business from the human component 5. Misunderstanding the meaning of empathy for ‘‘pity’’, which is dehumanizing 6. Empathy is fleeting/situational, while other qualities are stable 7. Historical lack of references/illustrations/visibility and discussion of empathy 8. Respondents lack empathy themselves
These codes were further consolidated in the following two major themes: 9. Respondents believe that empathy is inappropriate in business settings (codes 1, 2, 4). 10. Respondents have a lack of familiarity with empathy (codes 3, 5, 6, 7, 8)”.
(Holt & Marques, 2012, p. 100).
The low ranks
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Interesting correlations“The strongest correlations are found between:
(1) Empathy and Service(2) Passion and Courage(3) Integrity and Empathy(4) Intelligence and Empathy” (Hu, 2013).
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Curricular influence?• 2nd lowest ranked leadership value: SERVICE:
– Decreased after 2011 (MGMT 461 -core BBA course…!)– Increased again after 2012 (MGMT 350 – prereq)
• Lowest ranked leadership value: EMPATHY: – Decreased after 2011 (MGMT 461 -core BBA course…!)– Increased again after 2012 (MGMT 350 – prereq)
• Overall trends after 2011 (when MGMT 461 became a core BBA course)
– Empathy, service, integrity, courage and vision went down. – Competence increased.
• Overall trends after 2012 (when we started enforcing MGMT 350 (Ethics) as a prerequisite to the course)
– Empathy, service, integrity, and vision went up again.– Between 2009 and 2011, Responsibility was very high (no. 1).