The Empathy Blind Spots Every Leader Needs to Examine
The empathy series wraps with the humbling part. Vonda opens by admitting she's a little afraid Lori is about to tell her she has blind spots — and Lori's answer is worse and better at once: we all have many. The goal is twofold: learn to recognize your own, and when someone lovingly points one out, resist the reflex to get defensive. The roadmap comes from Empathy Is Not a Weakness by Lauren Sanders — a corporate leader who couldn't understand why her team wouldn't rally behind her, until her own boss suggested that maybe she was the problem. Sanders turned the word EMPATHY into a practice, one letter at a time.
E and M: examine your blind spots, manage your mindfulness
Examining blind spots starts with admitting that first impressions are often just assumptions built on a narrow view — bias in action — and that blind spots block objectivity. Lori catches Vonda's in real time: an employee slumps in the door, and Vonda's eyes roll — "I am not in the mood to deal with this" — while Lori's instinct is "oh no, I wonder what happened." (In Vonda's defense, Lori notes, a lifetime of being responsible for payroll and roofs-over-heads breeds that reflex.) Either way, the check-in still has to happen. The classic research here is the Dunning-Kruger effect — people with limited skill wildly overestimating it — which Lori illustrates with a story from sorority rush: a stand-in soloist who looked the part, had the moves and the outfit, and was completely tone-deaf. Nobody had checked the voice. Huge blind spot — hers and the committee's.
Managing mindfulness is presence. In her Symposium class, Lori role-played the same conversation twice: once standing over an "employee" holding her phone, once sitting down, hand in hand, fully there. The phone, the computer, the drive-by "let me know if you need anything" — they all say you don't have my attention. Vonda's confession: her most genuinely empathetic recent moment came in the salon chair, where she literally couldn't move or multitask — and truly cried with a stylist going through a divorce. If you honestly can't muster presence in the moment, Lori's advice is to know that about yourself and designate the person on your team who can. "Everybody needs a Lori."
P and A: practice perspective, activate self-awareness
Practicing someone else's perspective means not walking into conversations with negative intent — no pre-deciding that the 2 p.m. on your calendar is going to be a crappy conversation. Every employee walks into the shop each day from a different perspective, and post-symposium, both hosts admit the word has been rattling around their heads. The design-world example got laughs at the class: Vonda was a firm no on chicken wire until a designer she worked with explained the reasoning — you can lift the piece out, water it — and she realized she had to be open to it. Sometimes perspective just takes someone explaining the why instead of telling you the what.
Activating self-awareness is the leadership stakes in a sentence: if you mobilize a team purely by hammering expectations, they'll do the work — and no more than what's expected — and eventually they'll leave. That's the shop with the revolving door. Two zingers from Sanders' book: people who lack self-awareness are usually the ones who call empathy a weakness, and if you don't know whether you're self-aware... you probably aren't.
T, H, and Y: tact, honest communication, and "yes, and"
Tact is saying something sensitive in a direct, impactful way while the other person keeps their dignity. The hosts have both seen influential design instructors whose delivery sends students out of class in tears — often without meaning to — and they've seen the opposite in Bill McKinley, whom Vonda calls the best: a true teacher whose corrections sound like "I want you to try to see this." Lori felt it herself at symposium — 45-second hallway interactions where he remembered her classes and offered encouragement, and every one put pep in her step.
Honest communication — and listening. If people fear being singled out for questions or mistakes, they live at work in fight-or-flight and never bring their best selves; listening and honesty are the foundation of psychological safety. Most of us think we're better listeners than we are: listen to understand, not to respond. And when time is the objection, reuse last episode's tool — "I have 10 minutes at 2:00, the timer's set, and you have my undivided attention." Y is "yes, and" — building on ideas instead of shutting them down with an instant "no way." When an employee brings an idea, even through gritted teeth, try "yes — keep talking, tell me more." Vonda's amended version ("maybe — let me hear what you're thinking") gets flagged immediately: that's pre-judging, and your face is already saying no. Sanders' case studies show the "yes, and" conversations often land on a workable compromise no flat "no" would have found.
The through-line: empathy isn't a box you check after one podcast series. There are days even Lori has no empathy in the pot. It's a daily practice — and it starts with being brave enough to look at your own blind spots.
Key takeaways
- Everyone has empathy blind spots; the skill is spotting yours and hearing feedback without getting defensive.
- Presence is the message: phone down, sit down, timer set — or designate the empathetic person on your team.
- Walk into hard conversations without pre-loaded negative intent; explain the why, and stay open to others'.
- Deliver corrections with tact — direct, kind, and dignity intact, the way the best teachers do.
- Replace "no way" with "tell me more" — the "yes, and" keeps ideas (and people) coming back.