From empathic leader to empathic leadership practice: An extension to relational leadership theory

Abstract

Does empathy merely take place in leaders’ minds? How does it help us better understand and practice leadership? In the past, entitative relational leadership studies have mainly drawn on a mind-based understanding of empathy and focused on the association between individual empathy traits and leader emergence and effectiveness. Such an approach overlooks leadership practice of empathy as a constructive process. By integrating emerging research from diverse disciplines from philosophy to communication, the article first offers a constructionist view of empathy, based on which empathic leadership practice is conceptualized. The article explicates how leadership practice of empathy construction is rooted in relational ethics and takes place in both synchronic dyadic interaction through conversation as well as diachronic narrative practice with a collective other. By conceptualizing empathic leadership practice through a social constructionist approach to empathy, the article makes significant contributions to our understanding of relational leadership.