Why 2026 Must Be the Year of the Empathetic Leader

How a World of Continued Segregation and Bias Is Changing What We Need From Leadership at Work

Will 2026 be the year empathetic leadership truly takes centre stage in organisations worldwide? As we move into another year shaped by political complexity, social division, and continued uncertainty, leaders are once again required to navigate performance in environments heavily influenced by the wider human condition. With ongoing global elections, economic pressure, and polarised public discourse, our workplaces continue to absorb the emotional impact of the world around them, often without the structures or leadership capability required to manage it well.

This marks the fourth consecutive year in which leaders are asked to sustain performance while managing heightened levels of tension, opinion, and emotional response within their teams. For many organisations, this challenge feels familiar, and yet leaders still report feeling underprepared to address it effectively.

Today, we are experiencing some of the weakest levels of shared understanding and connection within workplaces, as the Global Empathy Deficit continues beyond the three decades it has already been in place. There has rarely been a greater need for understanding, listening, and open communication from leaders, and yet investment in leadership development and empathy training remains limited. Research published by Harvard Business Review shows that organisations with open communication channels are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers, yet only 32 percent of employees believe their leaders are genuinely transparent.

Neuroscience has long shown that human beings emote before they reason. For years, workplaces operated under the assumption that we are primarily rational at work, yet evidence consistently demonstrates that emotional responses have a far greater impact on health, workplace culture, and organisational performance. Emotions such as uncertainty, fear, anxiety, anger, and loneliness shape how people connect, collaborate, and contribute at work. When these emotions intensify outside the workplace, empathy inside organisations often declines, precisely at the moment when it is needed most.

Despite a desire to respond to complexity with calm, courage, and optimism, it is our natural human responses that drive employee engagement unless leaders intervene deliberately. 2026 must therefore become the year empathy moves from aspiration to action within the business world, if organisations are to strengthen employee connection, cohesion, communication, and retention. This responsibility sits firmly with leadership teams.

From an evolutionary perspective, human beings perform better together. From an organisational strategy perspective, teams succeed when they collaborate effectively. To sustain resilience and endurance in 2026, employees will increasingly and often subconsciously expect higher levels of mutual understanding, listening, and open communication from those who lead, mentor, and engage them. The fundamental human need to feel seen and heard will become even more pronounced as prolonged uncertainty continues to shape daily working life.

This expectation presents a challenge. When individuals and organisations operate in survival mode, focus often narrows towards self protection and control, making it harder to activate the parts of the brain responsible for empathy. Research shows that people are more likely to disengage empathy when they feel unable to help or respond effectively. However, empathetic leadership remains fundamental to driving performance across nearly all corporate indicators. Far from being an innate or fixed trait, empathy is a skill that can be developed, strengthened, and applied deliberately. It is a choice, a capability, and a data set that leadership teams can use to improve outcomes.

In 2026, the leaders who succeed will be those who recognise empathy not as a soft ideal, but as one of the most critical leadership capabilities of our time. Emotional management, team empathy, and Listening-Led Leadership will represent both the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity for organisations seeking to turn prolonged disruption into sustained growth, engagement, and performance. Now is the time to train at scale.

Check out other article: Why Organisations Have a Retention Problem They Cannot Pay Their Way Out Of

About Mimi Nicklin:

Mimi Nicklin is a bestselling author and the founder of Empathy Everywhere. As the world’s leading voice on Listening-Led Leadership, she has reached over 4M+ people by reframing empathy as a neuro-driven "hard skill" for the AI era. On a mission to reconnect one million professionals by 2028, Mimi works with global organizations to turn human connection into a measurable competitive advantage.

Connect: Email to Mimi | www.empathyeverywhere.co