The Role of Empathy in Leadership with Katharine Manning
Katharine Manning, President of Blackbird and author of The Empathetic Workplace, joins The Bliss Business Podcast to explain workplace trauma response: how leaders can acknowledge what someone is going through, connect them to support, and treat everyone fairly when life and work collide, with calm and compassion.
Workplace trauma response is a leadership skill most managers are never trained for, yet every team eventually needs it. In this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, we talk with Katharine Manning, President of Blackbird and author of The Empathetic Workplace, who spent 15 years at the Justice Department supporting cases like the Boston Marathon bombing and the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
In this episode we explore:
• Why empathy is not weakness, and what it really means to lead with it
• How to notice when a team needs extra support
• A simple fact-first script for starting a compassionate check-in
• The five steps of compassionate response: listen, acknowledge, share information, empower with resources, and return
• How to scale empathy with acknowledgement, support, and fairness
• What a hospital’s honest response to a tragic error shows about love in business
Katharine starts by removing the stigma. Empathy does not mean giving in to everyone’s wishes. It means understanding what people need to thrive and facing hard decisions with clear eyes. When leaders do that, she says, well-being rises, trust skyrockets, and the mission follows.
Then she gets practical. Big changes and world events reach teams in ways leaders cannot always see, so she recommends simple shared language, like rating your day from one to ten, so people can signal how they are doing without explaining why. For a direct check-in, she advises opening with a fact you noticed, then asking an open-ended question.
Her five-step response comes from her book, and she pairs it with three organizational pillars: acknowledgement, support, and fairness. She also describes “noisy self-care,” where leaders say out loud that they use the resources on offer.
She closes with the story of Leilani Schweitzer and Stanford Children’s Hospital, where transparency and apology after a devastating error brought healing and even lowered the hospital’s insurance reserves.
Treating people as people, in the moments that matter most, is the same human-first thinking Zero Company brings to how brands speak with their audiences.
Key Takeaways
• (2:41) On what empathy is not: “Empathetic doesn’t mean that we are giving in to everybody else’s wishes.”
• (7:51) On giving teams easy language for how they are doing: “just having some sort of easy language that lets people talk about how they’re doing in terms of mental health without requiring a lot of detail.”
• (12:33) On the habit that matters most: “having regular one-on-one meetings is going to be the most powerful thing you do as a supervisor or as a leader in any role.”
• (14:31) On how to open a check-in: “So the fact statement about what you noticed followed by open-ended question is what I advise.”
• (15:43) On the first pillar of empathetic leadership: “the three pillars of empathetic leadership are acknowledgement, so creating an environment where people feel heard.”
• (36:47) On how Stanford responded to a tragic error: “Leilani did not sue Stanford and in fact went to work for Stanford and became a liaison in that role.”
FAQ
What are the five steps of compassionate response to trauma at work?
Katharine Manning, author of The Empathetic Workplace, teaches five steps: listen, acknowledge, share information, empower with resources, and return, which means checking in later and taking care of yourself.
How should a leader start a check-in with a struggling employee?
Katharine Manning advises opening with a fact about a change you noticed, such as someone going quiet in a staff meeting, then asking an open-ended question. A fact statement avoids the defensiveness that “you seem off” can cause.
Does leading with empathy make a leader look weak?
Katharine Manning says that belief comes from a misunderstanding. Empathetic leadership means understanding what people need to thrive while still facing difficult decisions head on.
🎙️ Hosted by Stephen Sakach and Mike Liwski
🎧 Produced by Tullio Siragusa
Workplace trauma response starts when one person acknowledges another. Learn more about Katharine Manning and Blackbird at katharinemanning.com. See her guest profile, watch the video, or explore more Featured Guest Series conversations.
Author | Public Speaker | President of Blackbird
Katharine is the President of Blackbird, which provides training and consultation on empathy at work. She is the author of The Empathetic Workplace: Five Steps to a Compassionate, Calm, and Confident Response to Trauma on the Job, and teaches at American University and in the Master’s in Trauma-Informed Leadership Program at Dominican University. Her work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Newsweek, CNBC, Business Insider, Thrive Global, and CEOWorld. She has worked on issues of trauma and victimization for more than 25 years, including 15 years at the Justice Department, where she was a Senior Attorney Advisor consulting on victim issues in cases like the Boston Marathon bombing and the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
