Empathy: What You See Before They Tell You

I had been in the building for about two hours.

New company. New team. New relationships to build. I had back-to-back one on one meetings scheduled with the leadership team, an hour each, and I was still in the early innings of understanding who these people were and what they were capable of.

Ashley was the third person I met that day.

She was the Controller. Organized and precise in the way that role requires. But within the first few minutes of sitting across from her, I noticed something else. The way she processed questions before she answered them. The way she communicated, clearly and without clutter. The way she engaged with ideas rather than just responding to them.

Quick mind. Sharp. Grounded. A natural communicator.

Underutilized in her current role.

I asked everyone I met that day some version of the same question. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Most people gave me a version of a safe answer. Ashley didn't.

She told me she wasn't sure, but that she knew she had more to give. That she was eager to prove she could contribute at a higher level. There was no posturing. Just an honest statement from someone who had already outgrown the room and knew it.

I told her I would keep my eyes open. That if something came along that matched what I was seeing in her, I would let her know and advocate for her.

I meant it. She filed it away the way you file away a promise someone makes in a first meeting, with cautious hope and reasonable skepticism, because most people say things like that and then move on.

I didn't.

About two years passed.

I was in a casual conversation with Eric, the Financial Planning and Analysis leader at the corporate level. He mentioned, almost offhandedly, that he was looking to expand his team.

He wasn't asking me for anything. I don't think he had gotten that far yet. But I knew what he was doing. Ashley had been a part of our monthly financial updates, and Eric had seen her work. I suspect he was working his way toward a question he wasn't sure how to ask.

I didn't wait for the question.

I told him I knew exactly who he needed, and that if he was interested, I could reach out to her and see if she wanted to have a conversation.

He was very interested. And then he said something that stopped me for a moment.

He told me he was surprised I would be willing to give her up.

I told him the truth. I knew what her goals were. I had known for two years. And if I sat on that knowledge and let the opportunity pass because it was inconvenient for me, I would be doing her a disservice. Her growth wasn't mine to hold onto for my own benefit.

I called her that same day.

She said yes before I finished the sentence.

I called Eric back and told him to have the conversation. One caveat, I told him. I wanted her to remain as the FP&A resource for my companies. He could have her for other companies too, but I wasn't giving her up entirely. He agreed without hesitation.

She got the job. She kept our relationship intact. And I kept working with someone I had invested in and, more importantly, trusted.

That could have been the end of the story. It wasn't.

When I was offered the promotion to Operating Partner, I had one condition. I wanted Ashley as the FP&A for my entire region.

My boss told me he would never break up a partnership that worked so well.

Over the next few years, she grew into a role that covered ten operating companies in two regions and over two hundred and fifty million dollars in revenue. Budget season, monthly closes, financial analysis across the entire portfolio. She handled all of it. Every month. Without flinching.

Then, after I retired, I was asked to develop and deliver financial training for branch managers across the entire company. Fifty-something people who needed to understand how to read and use their own financial data.

I agreed. And I asked Ashley to help.

We got on a Zoom call. Fifteen minutes. I walked her through what I needed, a general outline of the topics, some thoughts on the structure of the slide deck. 

That was it.

Two days later, she sent me a draft.

It was ninety-five percent complete. First attempt. Minimal instruction. Just two people who had spent years building enough trust that she already knew how I think, what I needed, and how to get there without being told.

I encouraged her to deliver part of it herself.

She was exceptional.

She told me more than once that no one had ever made her a promise like that and kept it.

That meant something to me. But I've thought about it enough since to understand something more clearly now.

Seeing someone isn't a passive act.

What I saw in that first hour wasn't just Ashley's capability. It was the gap between where she was and where she was capable of going. And once you see that gap clearly, you have a choice. You can acknowledge it quietly and move on. Or you can decide that the person sitting across from you deserves someone who will do something about it.

That's the difference between empathy as a feeling and Empathy as a bearing.

The feeling is common enough. Most leaders have a general sense that the people around them are capable of more. What's less common is the willingness to carry that awareness forward, to act on it at cost to yourself, to stay in it over years rather than moments.

That's what the Empathy bearing in the EPIC Compass actually asks of a leader. Not to feel more. To see more accurately. And then to do something with what you see.

Its stabilizer is Insight. Empathy without Insight can drift. It can turn into projection. Into wanting someone to succeed so badly that you stop seeing them clearly. Insight is what keeps the seeing accurate. It separates what you observe from what you hope. It turns emotional awareness into something you can act on.

What I saw in Ashley that first day was real. Not because I wanted it to be. Because it was. The Insight kept me honest. The Empathy kept me invested.

Together, they built something that neither one could have built alone.

So, here's the question worth sitting with.

Who in your organization have you already seen clearly, and done nothing with it?

Not because you don't care. But because acting on what you see would cost you something, and the easy thing is to let it stay where it is.

Empathy isn't the warm feeling you get when someone tells you their story.

It's what you do with what you already know.