ABSTRACT
For well over a decade now, there has been mounting interest among organizational researchers in the role of emotions at work (Fineman, 2004; Walter, Cole, & Humphrey, 2011), with the concepts of emotional intelligence (EI), social intelligence, and their components—and how to develop these— attracting considerable attention (Goleman, 1995; Goleman & Boyatzis, 2008). Understanding and developing the components that make up EI holds particular interest for management scholars and practitioners looking for tools that can help managers enhance their interpersonal relationships with their collaborators. The capacity for empathy is one of these components, since it is integral to understanding others and thus to the social competencies associated with EI. In fact, Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002, p. 50) consider empathy to be “the fundamental competence of social awareness”.
