The Empathy Tax Female Leaders Pay

At a time of high stress and uncertainty, leaders must increasingly spend time and energy steadying their people. However, work like comforting a team after layoffs or explaining a change of direction takes a toll. And as this work grows, women leaders report that they are doing an outsize portion of it compared with men. That’s bad news not only for valuable female leaders but also the organizations trying to retain them. But both can learn how to better address the empathy tax.