INTERACTIVE EMPATHY AND LEADER EFFECTIVENESS: AN EVALUATION OF HOW SENSING EMOTION AND RESPONDING WITH EMPATHY INFLUENCE CORPORATE LEADER EFFECTIVENESS

Empathy has been shown to be a very powerful social and work ability. This study surveyed 754 employees of a privately held eastern United States company, and incorporated annual performance evaluations to empirically link interactive empathy to leader performance of 102 leaders. Data was collected from the leader’s followers, peers, and supervisors and from self-report personality evaluations. The results of this study show that leaders that are willing to engage their followers with empathic displays are seen as better leaders from their supervisors and have more engaged employees. Other contributions of this study include validation of the interactive empathy scale in a corporate environment and empirical support to show how interactive empathy adds incremental explanatory power of leader’s performance above and beyond that explained by personality. Directions for future research and practical implications of these results are also offered.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business Administration

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Burch, Gerald

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ronald Humphrey

• empathy
• engagement
• leadership
• Business
• Business Administration, Management, and Operations

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/540

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1539