Empathy is the ability to recognize and connect with another person's experiences, beliefs, and feelings or, sometimes, as in the case of organizational change, a group of people. It is the ability to put ourselves in another person's shoes. Often considered a "soft" leadership skill, empathy is critical, especially during change. It is also one of the more challenging skills of leadership to cultivate and practice. In my book Launch Lead Live, empathy is one of the seven characteristics of a successful change leader.

There's a lot of talk about resistance to change. The number one question I am asked about managing change is: How do we manage the resistance to change? My answer is, build readiness and you won't have to manage resistance. Where there is readiness, resistance can't exist. That's why I advocate for leaders to help people feel prepared, capable, and supported to move toward something new and different.