Built to Care, Designed to Grow: Why Empathy Is the Strategy We Need Now

Written By Katie Shobe

In today’s climate of layoffs, organizational disruption, and emotional exhaustion, the idea of care as a professional strategy may seem idealistic. I believe it is not just idealistic. It is essential. My mission is to help individuals and organizations activate the internal switch to care. This approach unlocks emotional intelligence, deepens coaching impact, and transforms how learning drives results.

This is not about checking boxes. It is about cultivating transformation through discomfort, intention, and human connection.

The Cost of Care and Why It Matters

Care requires effort. It demands emotional labor, cognitive energy, and a willingness to lean into discomfort. Research by Scheffer, Cameron, and Inzlicht (2022) shows that people often avoid compassion because they perceive it as mentally exhausting. In fact, compassion is often seen as more taxing than empathy or detachment. This avoidance is especially common when the suffering feels distant or abstract. It highlights the need for intentional practice and emotional regulation to sustain care-centered engagement.

In professional environments, the cost of care is compounded by systemic pressures. Emotional labor, especially among women and caregivers, is frequently invisible and undervalued. Yet research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health confirms that a psychological climate of caring improves productivity, work quality, and engagement (Weziak-Bialowolska et al., 2020). Care is not a distraction from performance. It is a driver of it.

Empathy in the Age of Layoffs

Layoffs affect more than those who lose their jobs. They ripple through entire organizations. A longitudinal study of the U.S. aluminum industry found that layoffs increased mental health-related outpatient visits and prescriptions among remaining workers, especially women (Elser et al., 2019). The emotional toll of job insecurity and organizational dehumanization leads to exhaustion, reduced safety compliance, and diminished trust.

This is where care-centered development becomes essential. Empathy is uncomfortable because it requires vulnerability. It asks us to acknowledge pain, uncertainty, and complexity. Discomfort is not a sign of weakness. It is a signal that something important is happening. When we lean into that discomfort, we create space for healing, connection, and innovation.

Tools to Overcome the Cost of Care

Here are four foundational tools that help individuals and teams move through discomfort and into sustainable, care-centered growth.

The Empathy-to-Action Framework

Empathy without direction can lead to becoming overwhelmed and burned out. This tool helps professionals move from emotional resonance to strategic response by asking three questions:

  • What am I feeling?

  • What does this person need?

  • What action aligns with both care and capacity?

Care Inventory: What am I feeling?

This reflective exercise helps us identify where care is present and where it is missing across their daily landscape. Begin by setting aside five minutes to scan your current emotional state.

Ask yourself:

  • What emotions am I carrying into this moment?

  • Where do I feel emotionally depleted, and where do I feel energized?

  • Which relationships, roles, or routines feel aligned with care—and which feel disconnected?

Use a simple three-column journal format:

  • Column 1: Area of focus (e.g., team meetings, client interactions, personal boundaries)

  • Column 2: Emotional tone (e.g., calm, anxious, resentful, engaged)

  • Column 3: Care status (e.g., present, strained, missing)

This mapping helps professionals prioritize where to invest emotional energy and where to establish or reinforce boundaries. Repeat weekly to track shifts and patterns over time.

Micro-Moments of Regulation: How can I regulate my emotions?

Care does not require grand gestures. It requires presence. This tool uses short, intentional resets to regulate emotional intensity and stay grounded. Try one of the following techniques before or during high-stakes interactions:

  • Box Breathing: Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4. Repeat for 60 seconds.

  • Body Scan Pause: Close your eyes and scan from head to toe, noticing tension without judgment. Release where possible.

  • Name-and-Frame: Silently name the emotion you’re feeling (“I’m frustrated”) and reframe it with a care-centered lens (“This frustration signals that I care about the outcome”).

These micro-practices can be used between meetings, during transitions, or in moments of overwhelm. They help you reset without disengaging.

Using the Care Inventory to Activate Your Internal Care Switch: What am I feeling, and what action aligns with care and my current emotional capacity?

This combined exercise helps you assess where care is present or missing in their day-to-day experience—and then take intentional, emotionally intelligent action. It’s designed to move you from awareness to alignment, especially in moments of stress, fatigue, or disconnection.

Set aside 10–15 minutes and follow these steps:

  • Identify Key Areas

    List 3–5 relationships, roles, or routines you engage with regularly (e.g., team meetings, client calls, personal boundaries, leadership decisions).

  • Rate Emotional Tone

    For each area, ask yourself: How do I feel when I engage in this space? Use words like energized, drained, anxious, neutral, resentful, or fulfilled.

  • Assess Care Presence

    Ask: Is care actively present here? Mark each area as high, medium, or low care. Consider whether empathy, connection, and intention are showing up—for yourself and others.

  • Prioritize Adjustments

    Choose one low-care area and identify a small, manageable shift you can make. Examples include:

    • Setting a clearer boundary

    • Initiating a check-in with a colleague

    • Reframing your role in a recurring meeting

    • Saying no to a task that drains you

    • Activate the Internal Switch to Care

Use this three-part process to guide your next step with clarity and compassion:

  • Grounding Statement: Center yourself with a phrase like “I choose to care, even when it is hard” or “I can lead with empathy and protect my energy.”

  • Values Check-In: Ask, What value do I want to honor in this moment? Choose one—such as respect, clarity, compassion, or accountability—and let it guide your action.

  • Care-Centered Action: Identify one small step that reflects both care and your current emotional bandwidth. This might be listening more deeply, pausing before reacting, or offering appreciation.

Repeat this process weekly to track emotional patterns, recalibrate your energy, and build a sustainable care-centered practice. Over time, this reflection-to-action loop strengthens emotional intelligence and helps you lead with intention—even when it’s hard.

A Call to Grow With Intention

Care is not a trend. It is not a buzzword. It is a practice. In this moment, when so many are hurting, uncertain, and searching for meaning, it is a practice we urgently need.

If you are an individual looking to deepen your emotional intelligence, a team seeking stronger connection, or an organization ready to reimagine professional development, I invite you to explore what care can do for your growth.

When we build with care, we build something that lasts.

Coaching to Care: A Human-First Approach to Growth

Through my EIQ assessment and coaching, I help professionals understand emotional intelligence as a dynamic skillset that can be cultivated through care. I also design custom learning experiences that meet teams where they are. Whether you are focused on leadership development, team dynamics, or scalable training programs, every solution is rooted in the belief that care-centered learning drives real change. Not performative change. Not compliance for the sake of appearance. Real transformation.

Academic References

Scheffer, J. A., Cameron, C. D., & Inzlicht, M. (2022). Caring is costly: People avoid the cognitive work of compassion. *Journal of Experimental Psychology: General*, 151(1), 172–196. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001073

Weziak-Bialowolska, D., Bialowolski, P., Leon, C., Koosed, T., & McNeely, E. (2020). Psychological climate for caring and work outcomes: A virtuous cycle. *International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health*, 17(19), 7035. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17197035

Elser, H., Ben-Michael, E., Rehkopf, D., Modrek, S., Eisen, E. A., & Cullen, M. R. (2019). Layoffs and the mental health and safety of remaining workers: A difference-in-differences analysis of the US aluminium industry. *Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health*, 73(11), 1094–1100. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2018-211774

Note: This article draws from my ongoing doctoral research and evidence-based learning practices.

Katie Shobe