South Africa, May 12 -- Empathy has long been touted as a social currency, with customer experience (CX) professionals referring to it as the key to delivering excellent customer service. Leadership training and HR departments talk about the need for empathy in people management, and marketing and PR departments do their utmost to demonstrate all the good their organisation is doing in an effort to showcase a corporate culture of care.

But never before has empathy - and the outward display thereof - been more important than in the Covid-19 world. Because for the first time, this elusive 'soft skill' has demonstrated hard-core results.

Empathy leadership

Jacinta Ardern, New Zealand's Prime Minister, has based her country's highly succes...