The Absence of Empathy and the Erosion of Trust

A Black woman standing at desk shouting at a seated female who appears frustrated, has hands on her head and a sad expression. Image by Liza Summer via Pexels.

Jill Geisler

Jill Geisler is the Bill Plante Chair in Leadership and Media Integrity, Loyola University Chicago. Views are her own.

I’ve studied and taught leadership, management, and ethics for many years. The three are inextricably intertwined. Those of us in the field are especially interested in best practices. We collect and share those examples to help others.

We sometimes teach from worst organizational practices, too. People need to understand the impact of flawed leadership, bad management, and questionable ethics. Sadly, federal leaders have provided an abundance of such teaching material in the past few months—decisions and actions that cause short—and long-term harm that’s still being calculated.

Here's only a partial list of worst practices that have emanated from Washington:

Firing people indiscriminately.
Tying firings to “cutting fraud, waste, and abuse” without proving those allegations.
Telling people they are fired for “performance” when their evaluations have, in fact, been positive.
Firing people, calling them back shortly thereafter, then firing them again.
Offering buyouts, then telling employees who accepted them that they are fired instead.
Letting people in need of critical answers about their jobs and benefits languish in uncertainty and fear.
Forcing remote workers to return to the office without providing adequate space, tools, or technology.
Putting people with limited knowledge and experience in critical decision-making roles about complex programs and projects.
Targeting people who helped diversify organizations and make them more inclusive; villainizing and dismissing them.
Subjecting people to strict litmus tests of political loyalty, even for jobs that have traditionally been non-partisan.
Proclaiming that empathy is a problem for business and society rather than a workplace and leadership strength.

The absence of empathy is at the core of each of these deeply harmful leadership decisions.

Elon Musk was one of the birth parents of DOGE, the self-titled Department of Government Efficiency, which led many of these worst practices at the behest of the administration.

Musk has been quoted as saying, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit …”

And he’s wrong, of course. Empathy is a leadership strength.

Stanford researcher Jamil Zaki makes a compelling case for the universal value of empathy in his book, “The War for Kindness”—and in an interview with McKinsey, laid out its business benefits:

“Employees who believe their organizations, and especially their managers, are empathic tend to call in sick with stress-related illnesses less often. They report less burnout. They report better mental health and morale and a greater intent to stay at their organizations. People who feel empathized with also tend to innovate more and take creative risks.”

The callous disregard for others should never be a business value, much less a societal one.

And yet here we are, seeing some turn a blind eye or others attempting to rationalize bad actions. This DOGE stuff is just the Silicon Valley way of doing things, right? Move fast, break things, and then figure out what needs to be rebuilt and how.

Wharton’s Adam Grant spoke out about Elon Musk’s approach in a recent Op-Ed, giving him credit for his innovations as a businessman, but drawing a bright line at his worst behaviors:

“… the way he deals with people would fail the leadership class I teach at his alma mater. For more than a century, my field has studied how leaders achieve great things. The evidence is clear: Leadership by intimidation and insult is a bad strategy. Belittling people doesn’t boost their productivity but diminishes it.”

Grant also pointed out that uncaring leadership is bad for business:

“Take it from a review of over 400 studies across 36 countries with nearly 150,000 people: In the face of workplace aggression, people are less productive, less collaborative and more inclined to shirk their responsibilities. Abusive bosses break confidence and breed resentment. And ruthless, haphazard downsizing can cause the highest performers—the ones who have the best opportunities elsewhere—to jump ship.”

And why wouldn’t they? No one wants to work in an atmosphere of fear and distrust.

We know that trust is fragile.

Will the VA employees whose jobs were slashed ever again believe the government truly cares about them—and about the veterans they served? What about the CDC researchers whose projects-in-progress were halted overnight? What about their patients in medical trials that they can no longer help? Or the federal workers of color for whom government service was a hard-earned path to the middle class, now seeing it yanked out from under them or colleagues, despite their credentials.

Organizations downsize. But most do so carefully, strategically. The best take employee impact seriously. How will it affect engagement, productivity, innovation, retention, recruiting? How do we minimize harm?

I believe there’s a downstream impact of these slash-and-burn, empathy-free government cuts. It goes beyond the public protests, straight into workplaces everywhere.

I call it “trickle-down distrust.” People have now seen the worst-case scenarios coming out of Washington.

The unthinkable is now real—and ominous.

Understandably, people may fear that if such things can be done in federal workplaces, they might happen in theirs, too. Who’s to say some CEO or supervisor won’t decide that empathy is bad for business, and without so much as a clear strategy or ounce of regret, turn heretofore stable wages, working conditions, and even livelihoods into targets?

The new reality: Could someone “DOGE” us?

And if so …

Maybe we’ve been naïve to trust our managers.
Maybe we shouldn’t work as hard as we do.
Maybe we shouldn’t be as generous with innovative ideas.
Maybe we shouldn’t be goodwill emissaries for our company brand.
Maybe those of us who aren’t in unions might take a second look at organizing, if only to get better severance pay if we’re cut.
Maybe those of us in unions should demand hard, uncompromising stances and automatically file grievances.
Maybe we ought to study up on laws that can protect us—and become litigious.

Many of DOGE’s and the administration’s actions have been—and are being successfully challenged in the courts. The New York Times and other organizations are tracking the voluminous cases.

But as lawsuits play out and people hope for just outcomes, leaders grounded in values and critical thinking need to clearly communicate that the law is not the only measure of whether an action is correct.

Those of us who teach ethics often point out that things can be perfectly legal—and perfectly wrong.

Through the lessons of #MeToo, we learned that women could be made to feel uncomfortable, unwanted, or objectified at work, but absent “quid pro quo” demands, the actions might not be illegal.

We learned through our post-George Floyd racial reckoning that while people endured microaggressions that made the workplace ugly, inhospitable, and miserable, they might not fit the pure legal definition of discrimination.

And we’ve known for a long time that bosses may be arrogant, unfeeling, obnoxious jerks, but if that’s how they are to everyone, it might not violate employment law.

They get away with actions that are perfectly legal and perfectly wrong.

That is why it is important for good leaders to step up now.

This isn’t about dragging politics into the workplace. It's about CEOs and top management understanding that power can erode empathy, and never letting that happen on their watch.

It’s about employers living their values out loud, explaining how those deep beliefs guide their business decisions and employee relationships. It’s about clearly sharing what they stand for and what they’d never stand for.

When leaders—or any of us—speak out against actions and conditions that are unfair, unkind, unethical, or immoral, it’s a best practice. We need more best practices like that right now.

After all, they are perfectly legal—and perfectly right.

“Courts Block Trump's DOGE Actions—Chaos, Panic not Proving to be Best Legal Strategy”

“‘Indiscriminate Madness’: DOGE Claims Firings Target low Performers and new Employees. The Reality is far From it”

“'It's a lie': Federal Workers Incensed by Performance Language in Termination Letters

“'Your RIF Notice is not Cancelled.' Inside a Chaotic Week of Massive Layoffs at HHS”

“Federal Workers Took the 'Buyout.' Some got Fired Anyway”

“Fired, Rehired, and Fired Again: Some Federal Workers Find They're Suddenly Uninsured”

“Parking Chaos and no Toilet Paper: An Inside Look at the Federal Return-to-Office”

“The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover”

“Dismissed by DEI: Trump’s Purge Made Black Women With Stable Federal Jobs an Easy Target”

“Americans Stand up for Federal Employees as Trump's DOGE Ignites Government Layoffs”

“Trump Accelerates Push to Reward Loyalty in Federal Workforce”