"The Boston Consulting Group managing director and senior partner defines it not as feeling someone else's emotions but as understanding their perspective—seeing the context, pressures, and biases that shape how others interpret the world. 'It's active curiosity,' she says. 'You recognize their point of view without having to mirror their feelings.' Leadership styles swing between command-and-control and more humanistic approaches, but Barton argues today's volatility—geopolitical shocks, rapid technological change, and 'wild-card uncertainties' like pandemics or climate crises—makes cognitive empathy essential."
"Once executives reach the top, she notes, they often operate in a bubble. 'People around you get attuned to reading [the] type of information you react well to and start feeding you more of that, and what you react negatively to, they start feeding you less.' Practicing cognitive empathy 'pierces that bubble' and forces leaders to seek diverse inputs to weigh risks and opportunities."
Cognitive empathy is the active curiosity to understand others' perspectives, context, pressures, and biases rather than mirroring their emotions. The skill requires recognizing competing viewpoints and the forces that shape them while retaining a clear point of view. Volatile conditions—geopolitical shocks, rapid technological change, and unpredictable crises—make cognitive empathy essential for leaders. Executives often inhabit information bubbles; cognitive empathy pierces those bubbles and drives the deliberate seeking of diverse inputs to better weigh risks and opportunities. The approach preserves conviction through a shapeable, principle-based point of view that remains open to challenge and strengthens decisions and communications, especially in crises.
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