How to better understand people you don’t like

Empathy is often the easiest when it is needed the least. As a keynote speaker and consultant focused on empathic leadership, I encounter many people who agree that we need more empathy in workplaces. What is funny is who they think needs it the most. Frontline leaders tell me middle managers need it. Middle managers point up to senior leaders. Senior leaders blame the CEO. And sometimes… the CEO just blames “everyone else.” 

It’s easy to point to other people as lacking empathy, particularly those we disagree with or dislike. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the real test of empathy is not how we treat the people we like, support or agree with. The real test is if we can empathise with those people we don’t. That frustrating competitor, resistant stakeholder, argumentative staff member or aggressive colleague. These are the people who push our buttons, drive frustration and cause us issues. While we might want to ignore them, and sometimes this is possible, a much better and harder path is to lean into the hard work of understanding them. This is what I call empathy for the enemy and it might be the most critical skill for the modern leader.

What Empathy Really Means (and Doesn’t) 

Firstly let me clear up a common misconception: empathy is not agreement, endorsement or weakness. One concern people have is that empathy will make them a soft target for manipulation, but this is a fallacy. Empathy is about understanding what drives another person’s actions and behaviours. Why do they do what they do? You might not like the reasons, you may even find them morally reprehensible, but understanding them is not agreeing. Empathy is not giving in or letting people off the hook. It’s about collecting better data to make smarter, more informed decisions. If you don’t know why someone acts a certain way, it is harder to work with them, fight against them or even simply avoid them in the first place.

Why It’s So Hard to Empathise with ‘Difficult’ People 

A big reason why we don’t want to empathise with these people is not actually them, it is us. I’m sure you have encountered people in the past who have said things or acted in ways that trigger an emotional response. You feel it, for me it is often accompanied by an unconscious flaring of the nostrils or deep sigh of frustration. When we have this instinctive response, we naturally start to shut down curiosity and ramp up judgment.

We label them the enemy, blame our feelings on their actions and create a story about their motives and intentions… and quite often, we’re wrong. Often we ask questions and search for information that validates our assumptions and ignore any evidence we might be right. We share our view with friends in the hope they will confirm our stories and create a greater divide.

It might feel like you are right but that’s not the point of being a leader. Empathy is the process of challenging assumptions and curiously exploring so we can better understand the motives, fears and perspectives of another.

This is not a weakness, it is a super power. While assumptions might be fast, they are prone to bias and error. Poor assumptions are damaging for decision makers. Really understanding what drives people puts the power back in your hands. Our first critical step is to feel the emotional triggering as a sign to become curious not judgemental.

The day empathy for the enemy saved the world 

On 26 September 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov faced an impossible decision. As the officer on duty at a Soviet nuclear early-warning bunker, he received an alert: the United States had launched their nuclear missiles at the USSR. His orders dictated he report the threat immediately to his superiors triggering a full-scale nuclear retaliation by the Kremlin. But Petrov paused. He questioned the data. Why only a few missiles? Why hadn’t ground radar confirmed the strike? In a moment of intense pressure, with the fate of the world in his hands, he chose not to escalate but to question. His reaction was curiosity, not blind compliance… and it saved hundreds of millions of lives.

The reality was that the system had malfunctioned. There was no attack. But there would have been, had Petrov not questioned the motives of his enemy and simply followed orders. This is the power of the first step in the Empathy Process: Conscious Curiosity. This is the ability to pause, suspend judgement and question assumptions even when urgency screams for action. In our complex, high-pressure world, this is not a weakness. It is wisdom. And it’s essential for leaders. Empathy begins not with agreement, but with the courage to pause and think clearly. Petrov’s calm curiosity didn’t just avert a Nuclear war, it gave us a clear example of why empathy for the enemy is critical in decision-making and leadership.

Time to put it into practice 

The next time someone frustrates you, opposes your ideas or seems impossible to work with, resist the urge to form an opinion, build a narrative or dismiss them. Instead, practice conscious curiosity.

Ask: “What’s going on in their world?”
Ask: “What is driving their point of view?”
Ask: “What are the possible drivers of their behaviour?”

You don’t need to like them, you might never agree with them but you will be much better placed if you can understand them. That’s why empathy for the enemy is where judgements pause and real leadership begins.

Written by Daniel Murray.
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