Strong sales leadership requires empathy, which is the ability to tune into the emotional state of another human being. It’s a great attribute until it turns into avoidance.
Sales leaders with high empathy often struggle to separate understanding someone’s emotions from absorbing responsibility for them. When a manager feels another person’s stress, fear, or frustration too deeply, discomfort kicks in. And that discomfort drives behavior. Instead of having the hard conversation, holding the line, or letting someone sit in the tension needed to grow, the leader moves to relieve emotional pain. (And more often it’s their own!)
That’s when empathy shifts from a leadership strength to a performance liability.
Here’s how too much empathy shows up in sales leadership:
#1. Lowering standards of performance.
“I know my sales team is dealing with a lot right now.” You feel their pain—a little too much.
Targets get quietly adjusted, even when you know they can be hit with more effort.
Activity expectations soften when they should accelerate through close analysis of the quantity and quality of prospecting efforts.
Standards blur. Over time, the empathetic sales manager trains their team that emotions—not outcomes—determine the bar and drive their behavior.
A very dangerous place to be because emotions are well, emotional, and often not logical.
#2. Avoiding accountability conversations.
Highly empathetic leaders don’t want to disappoint, embarrass, or discourage their people. So, feedback gets delayed or diluted.
“I’ll wait until there is a good time to give feedback.” A month goes by and their just doesn’t seem to be any time that seems like a “good time.”
“I know you’re getting discouraged that your prospecting efforts don’t seem to be yielding results. Just try to do better.” Dilution of feedback at its finest.
A better response is empathy combined with assertiveness. “I know you’re getting discouraged because it seems your prospecting efforts aren’t yielding results. Let’s talk about that and together determine what you need to change up in your business development plan.”
You show empathy and assertiveness, communicating you understand their frustration AND that results still need to be achieved.
#3. Becoming the Chief Rescue Officer
Instead of coaching salespeople to think, decide, and act, the sales leader puts on their red cape and flies in to fix deals, smooth over mistakes, and shield reps from consequences.
The short-term relief feels good. The long-term cost is a highly dependent team. Your overly empathetic approach results in:
- Your salesperson thinking and believing they can’t get deals across the line.
- A salesperson never learning how to fail, learn and improve.
- Repeated mistakes—the same ones—because they experience the impact of their actions or inaction.
Don’t confuse kindness with effectiveness.
Empathy without boundaries feels supportive—but it often robs people of growth. High performers don’t need to be rescued; they need to be challenged.
The most effective sales leaders balance empathy with clarity, courage and accountability.
Good Selling and Leading!