Why Empathy is the Most Underrated Skill CFOs Need

CFOs face more scrutiny than ever before, from investors, boards, and regulators demanding not just flawless numbers but strategic clarity and trust. But here’s the catch: the most powerful skill driving that trust and influence isn’t found on a balance sheet. It’s empathy.

Despite its reputation as a “soft” skill, empathy is fast becoming the ultimate leadership edge for CFOs navigating volatility and complexity. According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, employees rank empathy alongside transparency and ethics as top leadership traits—yet many finance leaders still emphasise precision over people. In a world that demands rapid decisions and resilient strategies, CFOs who lead with empathy don’t just manage numbers—they unlock human insight, elevate trust, and drive long-term performance. For CFOs, mastering empathy is no longer optional; it’s a strategic imperative.

Empathy in Action

Empathy transforms how CFOs lead conversations and influence decisions. When a business unit underperforms, empathetic leaders look beyond the variance. They pause to understand what’s really driving the numbers -capacity, capability, or morale-and uncover insights dashboards can’t show. In my work with CFOs, I’ve seen how empathy elevates conversations. The most effective finance leaders move beyond reporting results to interpreting what they mean for people, performance, and strategy. They don’t just explain what happened; they explore why it happened—and what it means for the organisation’s next move. That shift turns financial dialogue into strategic insight.

CFOs are among the most influential decision-makers in any organisation. Sitting at the intersection of data, strategy, and impact, you translate financial performance into business direction. Empathy strengthens this role by broadening how success is measured. Traditional dashboards focus on process, delivery, and cost, but they rarely reveal the whole story. Progressive CFOs are expanding their metrics to include customer insight, employee sentiment, and stakeholder trust, indicators that align the numbers with the strategic agenda.

The Human-First Advantage

Few environments carry as much sustained pressure as finance. Deadlines are tight, scrutiny is constant, and accuracy is non-negotiable. Many finance teams operate in a perpetual state of delivery—closing the books, meeting compliance targets, and supporting every major decision across the organisation. Under that weight, it’s easy for the function to become transactional, with performance measured solely by precision and speed. The human cost of this pressure is real. Burnout, fatigue, and disengagement are now some of the most significant risks to financial performance. According to the 2023 Catalyst study, employees who experience empathy from their leaders are more engaged, loyal, and significantly less likely to consider leaving. Yet in many teams, conversations about capacity, workload, or wellbeing happen too late—after performance or trust has already eroded.

This is where empathy becomes a strategic capability. Empathetic CFOs create space for honest dialogue before issues escalate. They notice when tone, energy, or behaviour shifts. They ask the extra question: What’s getting in the way? What support do you need to succeed? One CFO I advised implemented weekly “pulse check-ins”, not to review metrics, but to understand what was helping or hindering the team’s performance. Morale lifted, and productivity followed.

Empathy enables human-first leadership, an approach that recognises the people behind every forecast, budget, and target. It transforms the finance function from one driven purely by output to one driven by outcomes that are both sustainable and aligned with purpose. When CFOs model empathy, they normalise psychological safety and show that wellbeing and performance are not competing priorities, but complementary ones.

Empathy is a Strategic Advantage

The best CFOs know that agility is not just financial, it’s emotional. In a world where data moves fast and uncertainty never stops, empathy keeps leaders grounded in context, connection, and clarity. Empathy doesn’t compete with analysis; it completes it. It enables CFOs to interpret numbers through the lens of people and purpose, turning information into intelligence that drives smarter, faster, and more sustainable decisions.

As CFOs step further into enterprise-wide leadership and advisory roles, empathy becomes the differentiator between those who merely inform and those who truly influence. When they balance heart and mind, they elevate both precision and perception. They create environments where teams feel seen, strategies stay aligned, and trust multiplies performance. The future of financial leadership belongs to those who lead with both logic and empathy, who pair commercial acumen with emotional insight to deliver impact that endures. In a world that measures everything, will you have the courage to lead with what can’t be easily measured but yet matters most?

About the Author

Melinda McCormack is a leadership futurist, change strategist, and author of PULSE: Empathy Is Your Edge. A sought-after speaker and contributor on human-first leadership, she helps executives and boards build empathy as a competitive advantage through her programs and 1:1 executive coaching at Impact with Empathy. For more information visit: www.melindamccormack.com