Good CEOs May Lack Empathy, But Their Companies Depend on It

In a recent column, New York Times columnist David Brooks summarized recent research that found that successful CEOs were usually not empathetic, novel-reading, team-oriented people. On the contrary. The research—conducted by Steven Kaplan, Mark Klebanov and Morten Sorensen and published in a report called "Which C.E.O. Characteristics and Abilities Matter?"—found that people skills were overrated for CEOs.

"They found that strong people skills correlate loosely or not at all with being a good C.E.O. Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies.

What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours."

So, can we throw empathy out the window? Not at all.

Empathy is vital to any company's success. Empathy underlies every successful customer interaction, even if it doesn't play an obvious role in some high-level decision making. Ignore the customer requirements in product design, or continually snub customers on the phone, and a company will find itself in trouble, even if it has a remarkably efficient, highly analytical CEO.

Take the case of Apple. Apple products are so attractive and easy to use, people flock to stores to buy them as soon as they become available. In surveys, Apple's customer service consistently beats out that of rival PC makers. And Apple's commitment to empathy is perhaps nowhere better expressed than in the Genius Bar, a walk-up help desk you'll find in every Apple store. At the Genius Bar, helpful Apple employees will listen to you describe your problems with an Apple product and try to resolve them—for free, unless the product requires a physical repair.

Apple is truly an empathic company. Empathy—expressed through great product design and great customer service—is an essential element of its success.

Yet Apple's CEO is, shall we say, not always known for his calm, patient, empathic demeanor. This hasn't slowed Apple one bit. Steve Jobs has always been passionate about building insanely great products for customers and serving customers well (even if the company has made a few misjudgments in this area over the years). He clearly values empathy, even if he doesn't always embody it himself. He pushes the people around him to serve their customers well—and they do.

So while it's true that organizations often take on the character qualities of their leaders, it's also true that a CEO with a cut-and-dried, even brutal leadership style can build and lead a successful, highly empathic organization.

Empathy photo by Pierre Phaneuf, Creative Commons License, some rights reserved.Apple Genius Bar photo by maebmij, Creative Commons License, some rights reserved.