Empathic Leadership and Emotional Tax In The Workplace

Join Change Catalyst Founder & CEO Melinda Briana Epler with Andrea G. Tatum

Senior Director, Corporate Equity Engagement, Catalyst Inc on discussing how to create a supportive working environment. We discuss the Catalyst's research and the challenges of the emotional tax for women, particularly women of color: the state of being highly "on guard" at work, which can impact well-being and ability to thrive in the workplace. 

In this rich conversation, we learned about:

Andrea's personal experience experiencing racism in the workplace and how that led her to become an advocate. The role of inclusive leaders to develop workplace cultures where people feel valued and enabled to contribute their skills and expertise fully.The powerful changes leading with empathy can drive in the workplace

Some of our favorite quotes of the conversation:

I think everybody has the opportunity always to be a learner. And I had never really thought about empathy as a skill. You're not either born with empathy or not. You can learn it. You can learn to have empathy as a leader, and it's really a superpower and has the ability to drive so much change within the workplace.

Just like anything else. I can't expect to lose weight if I eat what I want to eat and I don't go to the gym. That's not realistic. So I always think about empathy and inclusive leadership as skills that you actively have to work towards. It's a muscle that you can build over time.

What really makes emotional tax so unique is that it's not limited to just the workplace. As people of color, this is our experience day in and day out. Everywhere we go, we don't have the luxury of being able to put aside our skin and say, well, today, I'm not a woman of color. I'm not a black woman. 

Additional resources: 

Connect with Andrea and learn more about her work at https://www.andreagtatum.com/"Why Empathy is A Superpower in the Future of Work" report by Catalyst: https://www.catalyst.org/research/empathy-superpower-future-of-work/

[image description: image of Andrea G Tatum  (Black woman with  short hair, smiling) and Melinda Briana Epler (white woman with red hair and glasses, smiling), with the text "Episode 28: How To Become An Empathic Leader In The Workplace" image shows a black and white background with red and black text]

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Producer: Juliette Roy

Project Manager: Sally Moywaywa

Finance & Operations: Renzo Santos

Diversity & Inclusion Specialist: Antonia Ford

Created by: Melinda Briana Epler

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