A colleague says a deadline is unrealistic. You are ready to explain why it cannot move, but you do not yet know what makes the work difficult. To build empathy, begin by learning how the situation looks from that person’s position. You can learn to understand another person’s experience through a conversation, even when the final decision remains yours.
Empathy is the effort to understand another person’s feelings and perspective. At work, it helps distinguish the problem someone faces from the explanation you have supplied for it. Understanding does not require agreement, and it does not give you access to another person’s thoughts.
How to Learn Empathy Through Listening
When considering how to develop empathy, start by giving the other person enough room to describe the situation. Put aside your response, remove distractions, and let them finish. Notice both the facts and the concerns they choose to mention; a pause gives them time to add what may be missing.
Suppose the colleague says that two reviews arrive at the end of every week. You might respond: “The reviews are arriving together, and that leaves little time to make changes. Have I understood that correctly?” This reflection makes your understanding visible and gives the speaker a chance to correct it. The Center for Creative Leadership describes listening, reflecting, and clarification as practices associated with empathy at work.
Listening is not a promise to fix every concern. If a decision is urgent, say how much time you have and make space for the most important information: “We have ten minutes before the meeting. What constraint should I understand first?”
Ask Before Interpreting
Learning empathy requires questions that invite detail instead of supplying an answer. “What happens between receiving the reviews and making the changes?” can reveal a dependency. “Which part creates the most pressure?” can distinguish a workload problem from an unclear approval process.
Avoid turning questions into a disguised verdict. “Why didn’t you plan better?” may close the discussion before the facts are known. Ask what was expected, what changed, and what options the person sees. Then check a specific assumption: “I assumed the reviewers could respond earlier. Is that possible?”
If the person does not want to discuss personal circumstances, respect that boundary. You can still ask what adjustment to the work would help and what information they are comfortable sharing. Developing empathy includes accepting that some explanations belong to the other person.
Examine the Situation From Their Position
Perspective taking means considering the information, responsibilities, and constraints another person may have. Before a difficult conversation, write down what you know about their task and what remains unknown. A reviewer may see a late request as a quality risk; the person awaiting approval may see the same delay as a threat to delivery.
Treat each interpretation as a question. “I wonder whether the late request makes it hard to check the details. What is it like on your side?” In experiments by Eyal and colleagues, directly obtaining another person’s perspective through conversation improved accuracy in a final experiment; imagining it alone did not. The lesson for a workplace discussion is to verify the story rather than rely on a confident guess.
Reflect, Then Decide
After the discussion, ask yourself what surprised you, which assumption changed, and whether your response addressed the concern expressed. If you interrupted or offered a solution too early, make a note to leave more space next time. Developing empathy is a practice of noticing and correcting these habits.
You may still need to decline a request. Explain the decision and the constraint, then identify what can change: “The launch date stays, but we can move the review earlier and remove one lower-priority task.” Acknowledging the pressure and setting a limit can occur in the same conversation.
If you are wondering how to learn empathy, use feedback from the person as your measure of whether you understood: “Did I capture the main issue?” When deciding how to increase empathy in your next conversation, try this: listen without interrupting, summarize one concern, and ask what you have missed. Let the answer guide your next question.