Empathy has been on my mind for some time. Lots of conversation and research has only confirmed its complexity. 

One aspect of this complexity is the different form that empathy can take. While I am still very much a student of empathy, I am seeing three levels or depths of empathy emerge:

Cognitive Empathy - characterised by "I say"
Emotive Empathy - "I feel"
Active Empathy - "I take action"

This gives you a sense of the 'depth' of your expressed empathy, and the impact it might have on another person.

For example, a great middle leader or manager will direct conversation to explore blocks or problems that impact on executing a role or a task.

Questions exploring problems provide cognitive empathy, listening and acknowledging gives emotive empathy, and taking action on these furnishes deep empathy, compassion.

This deep gift triggers the psychology of reciprocity, and the team member is motivated to give back.

Not all people or situations demand deep empathy, and knowing the nuance of how much to give is a skill of leadership that emerges from awareness and experience.

A further complexity, and problem, with empathy, is that we give it without directly knowing if it has landed. Regardless, it is the master key to managing most leadership challenges.