Empathy is the foundation of engineering leadership culture these days, but what exactly makes an empathetic leader?
Being an effective leader in the software industry is difficult. It’s a fundamentally creative field, but one that, from the outside, can be perceived as closer to an assembly line than a painter’s studio. In the former, being an effective leader often involves mechanistic optimization. But here in the software world, being an effective leader means structuring an environment where intelligent and creative people are able to do their best work. The most suitable way to do that is by leading with empathy.