Being an Empath in Business and what it costs you.
I’m an empath, and for a long time, I thought that could only be a good thing in business.
It makes me good at reading people. I notice changes in tone, body language and energy quickly. I can often tell when something isn't quite right before somebody tells me. As a coach, that's enormously useful.
But I've also had to learn that the very same quality that makes me good at what I do can make me less effective at running a business. Because empathy doesn't conveniently switch itself off when the coaching session ends and the commercial decisions begin.
It shows up when somebody can't afford your price. When a client is struggling and you know you could give them a little bit more. When somebody wants to leave a contract. When you need to enforce a boundary and you can completely understand why they want you to bend it.
I've had to learn to recognise those moments in myself.
I'm much more commercially minded now than I used to be, but that doesn't mean I've become less empathetic. I've become better at noticing when my empathy is influencing a business decision and asking whether I actually want it to.
I haven't learned to switch my empathy off. I've learned not to let it run the business.
And I think that's a distinction a lot of women in business need to hear.
What does being an empath actually mean?
“Empath” is a word we hear everywhere now. But despite its popularity, being an empath isn't a psychological diagnosis.
People generally use the word to describe somebody who is particularly sensitive to the feelings and emotional states of other people. You might be highly attuned to the atmosphere in a room, notice subtle changes in somebody's behaviour or find yourself strongly affected by another person's emotions.
Psychology gives us a more useful way of understanding some of what may be going on.
Researchers commonly distinguish between different aspects of empathy. ‘Cognitive empathy’ is our ability to understand another person's perspective or recognise what they might be thinking or feeling. ‘Affective’ or ‘emotional empathy’ involves experiencing an emotional response to somebody else's emotional state.
There's another concept I think is particularly important for people who identify as empaths: personal distress.
Personal distress is a self-focused emotional response to somebody else's distress. Their anxiety makes you anxious. Their disappointment makes you uncomfortable. Their upset creates an emotional response in you that you then want to alleviate. Researchers distinguish this from empathic concern, which remains focused on the other person's needs, and that distinction matters enormously in business.
Because sometimes the question isn't simply:
“Am I empathetic?”
It's:
“What happens inside me when I encounter somebody else's discomfort?”
Where does high empathy come from?
There isn't one answer.
Temperament, personality, relationships, environment and life experience can all influence how we respond to other people.
For some people, being highly attuned to other people's emotions may also have roots in what they learned growing up.
If you grew up in an environment where somebody else's mood mattered, you may have become very good at reading it.
Perhaps there was unpredictability at home. Maybe approval or affection felt inconsistent. Perhaps conflict made you anxious. Or maybe you simply learnt that being helpful, easy, considerate and emotionally aware gained approval.
A child can become remarkably good at scanning.
Is Mum okay?
Why did Dad say it like that?
Have I done something wrong?
Is everyone happy?
What do I need to do to make this okay?
Over time, noticing other people's emotional states can become almost automatic.
I want to be careful here because there's a very tempting internet-psychology narrative that says difficult childhood = empath, and the evidence doesn't support something that simple.
A recent review looking specifically at early adversity and empathy found a genuinely mixed picture. Some studies found greater empathy, some found lower empathy and others found no significant association. Interestingly, early adversity was more consistently associated with personal distress in adulthood than with simply “having more empathy”.
So not every empath has childhood trauma. And not everybody who experiences childhood adversity becomes highly empathetic.
But I do think it's useful to ask yourself:
Am I simply very good at understanding people, or have I also learnt to monitor how everybody around me is feeling?
And, perhaps more importantly:
Do I feel responsible for doing something about it?
Women, empathy and the pressure to be nice
There is another layer to this conversation that I think matters particularly for women in business.
Many of us have spent years being rewarded for being nice, accommodating, helpful, considerate and easy to get along with.
We're encouraged to think about other people's feelings.
We soften our language.
We apologise.
We don't want to seem difficult.
We don't want people to think badly of us.
None of those characteristics automatically makes somebody an empath, of course. But combine that social conditioning with somebody who is already highly sensitive to other people's emotional responses and you've got an interesting challenge when she starts running a business, because business regularly requires you to do things that somebody else might not like.
You have to name your price.
Chase an invoice.
Enforce a cancellation policy.
Say something isn't included.
Tell somebody no.
End a working relationship.
Challenge a client.
Refuse a refund.
Allow somebody to choose a cheaper competitor.
And sometimes make a decision that is right for the business even though you completely understand why the other person doesn't like it.
That's where empathy can start running the show.
How being an empath shows up in business
I think this is the part people often miss.
Being an empath in business doesn't necessarily look particularly dramatic.
Often, it looks like perfectly reasonable individual decisions.
You quote £2,000. They hesitate.
You sense their discomfort immediately and start explaining your price before they've even objected to it.
Then perhaps you offer a payment plan.
Then you throw something else in.
Then, somehow, you're negotiating against yourself in a negotiation the other person hadn't actually started.
Or a client is struggling. You know what's going on in her personal life, so you give her a bit of extra support.
Then a little bit more.
Six months later, she's receiving substantially more than she's paying for and you're beginning to resent it.
Someone cancels outside your cancellation terms, but they have a completely understandable reason.
So you don't charge them.
The next person has an understandable reason too.
Funny how everybody has an understandable reason when you're the one paying for it.
A client messages outside your working hours. You know she's anxious, so you reply.
Someone hasn't paid you, but you know they're having a difficult month.
A client isn't getting results because they aren't doing what they need to do, so instead of allowing them to take responsibility, you work harder.
You don't end a client relationship that's draining you because you know how much they need you.
None of those things looks like an “empath problem” in isolation.
But repeat them often enough and eventually you've built a business around protecting everybody else's feelings.
Empathy or people-pleasing?
There is a distinction I've had to learn in my own business:
Empathy says, “I understand how you feel.”
People-pleasing says, “I need to change how you feel.”
Those are not the same thing. (you can read more about people pleasing in business here.
One allows me to understand another person's circumstances while retaining my own judgement.
The other makes their emotional response part of my decision-making process.
This is where I've become much more commercially aware.
I can usually identify now when my empathy is starting to run the show.
I can feel that little urge to make the situation easier for somebody. To make an exception. To solve the problem. To make sure they're okay.
The difference is that I don't automatically act on it anymore.
I can intervene.
And sometimes, after thinking about it, I do choose to make the exception.
That's important.
I don't think good business means becoming rigid, uncaring or hiding behind policies regardless of the circumstances. There are times when compassion and discretion are absolutely appropriate.
But now I want it to be a choice.
I don't want somebody else's discomfort to make the decision for me.
When empathy starts affecting your pricing
Pricing is one of the clearest places I see this play out.
Money creates emotion.
You tell somebody what something costs and see their face change.
They tell you they'd love to work with you, but money is tight.
You know you can help them.
You can imagine how frustrated they must feel.
And suddenly you're calculating what you could afford to lose rather than whether your price is appropriate for the service you're providing.
I've had to become conscious of this myself.
My natural instinct is to understand somebody's circumstances. I don't want to lose that.
What I've learnt is that understanding someone's circumstances doesn't make me responsible for changing them.
Two things can be true simultaneously:
They genuinely cannot afford to work with you.
And:
You genuinely cannot afford to provide the work for less.
There doesn't have to be a villain in that story.
Sometimes the answer is simply no.
The empath business owner and over-delivering
Over-delivering is another one to watch.
And I'm not talking about deliberately giving clients an excellent experience. That's good business.
I'm talking about the extra work that gradually creeps in because you can see what somebody needs.
Five extra minutes becomes half an hour.
A quick WhatsApp answer becomes ongoing support.
One small favour becomes part of the expected service.
You're doing more and more but you're not charging more because, each time, there is an understandable reason.
The problem is that your client doesn't necessarily know they're crossing a boundary if you've never actually shown them where it is.
That's something empathetic business owners need to take responsibility for too.
We can't continually say yes and then privately resent somebody for accepting.
Are you supporting or rescuing?
This is particularly important in business.
You can see somebody's potential.
You understand why they're struggling.
You know what they need to do.
And because you care about the outcome, you start carrying some of their responsibility.
That's rescuing.
Supporting someone means giving them the tools, expertise, challenge or encouragement they need to move forward.
Rescuing means beginning to compensate for what they aren't doing themselves.
And ironically, rescuing somebody isn't always the kindest thing to do.
Sometimes allowing another adult to experience the consequences of their choices is exactly what allows them to change those choices.
Business problems don't always have business causes
This is something I see repeatedly in my work as a life and business coach.
A woman comes to me with what appears to be a business problem.
She's undercharging.
She's overwhelmed.
Her clients take too much of her time.
She can't enforce her boundaries.
She keeps saying yes to things she doesn't want to do.
We could treat each of those purely as a business problem.
We could write a cancellation policy. Increase her prices. Create office hours. Change her contract.
But business problems don't always have business causes.
Because the best cancellation policy in the world is useless if every time somebody gives you a reason you empathise with, you override it.
The perfect pricing strategy won't help if you immediately discount your price when you sense somebody's discomfort.
A boundary written in your contract isn't really a boundary if you're frightened to enforce it.
This is exactly why I don't believe we can completely separate personal development from business development.
You bring yourself into your business. Your patterns come too.
How to protect yourself as an empath in business
I'm actually not particularly keen on the phrase “protect yourself as an empath”.
It can make other people's emotions sound like something dangerous that we need to shield ourselves from.
I've found it more useful to learn how to manage my response to what I'm picking up.
Part of that is practical.
Have working hours.
Set your prices before you're sitting opposite somebody who wants a discount.
Have clear payment terms.
Decide what's included in your service.
Have a cancellation policy.
Put boundaries around client communication.
Structure is incredibly useful when you're highly empathetic because it means you don't have to make every decision while you're experiencing somebody else's emotional response to it.
But structure alone isn't enough.
You also have to become aware of what happens internally when someone pushes against it.
The questions I ask when my empathy might be running the show
When I notice myself wanting to make an exception or change a decision, I've learnt to get curious before I act.
These are the sorts of questions I find useful:
What would I decide if I didn't know this person's personal circumstances?
Has the commercial situation actually changed, or am I uncomfortable because they're uncomfortable?
Am I supporting this person or rescuing them?
If I make this exception, will I genuinely be happy about it afterwards, or am I likely to resent it?
Would I advise one of my clients to make the decision I'm about to make?
Can I acknowledge how this person feels without changing my decision?
Those questions don't always lead me to the harder commercial decision.
Sometimes I decide I want to help.
But they help me establish who is actually making the decision.
Me… Or my empathy?
Learn to let other adults have feelings
This might be one of the hardest lessons for highly empathetic people.
Other adults are allowed to be disappointed.
They're allowed to think you're expensive.
They're allowed to dislike your cancellation policy.
They're allowed to be frustrated when you say no.
They're allowed to feel uncomfortable when you challenge them.
They're even allowed to dislike you.
Their emotional response gives you information.
It doesn't automatically give you an instruction.
Of course, sometimes another person's reaction should make us reconsider. We get things wrong. We misunderstand people. We make poor decisions.
Being commercially minded isn't about bulldozing over other people's feelings.
It's about being able to hear them without automatically abandoning your own judgement.
I haven't become less empathetic. I've become better at business
I am still an empath.
Becoming more commercially minded hasn't taken that away from me, and I wouldn't want it to.
Empathy is one of the things that makes me good at coaching.
It helps me understand what's being said and sometimes notice what's not being said. It helps me see situations from another person's perspective and understand why somebody might be behaving as they are.
Empathy can be an enormous strength in business.
The change for me has been learning that understanding isn't the same as responsibility.
I can understand why somebody wants an exception and still say no.
I can care that somebody is struggling and still send the invoice.
I can recognise somebody's disappointment and still hold a boundary.
I can want the best for a client without doing their work for them.
And I can occasionally choose compassion over the most commercially advantageous decision because I have consciously decided that's what I want to do.
That's very different from doing it because I couldn't tolerate how somebody else felt.
So if you identify as an empath in business, I don't think the answer is to toughen up or care less.
Start noticing what happens after you feel the empathy.
Does it give you useful information?
Or does it make you responsible for fixing, accommodating, discounting, rescuing or keeping everybody happy?
The goal isn't to switch your empathy off.
It's to know when your empathy has stopped informing the decision and started making it for you.