Gigi Garcia

expert panel

Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank explore why empathy, self-awareness and compassion are becoming essential leadership competencies and what the shift means for developing and evaluating leaders.Leadership has never been only about strategy, execution or financial results. But as employee expectations continue to change, the way leaders create those results is receiving greater scrutiny. Employees increasingly expect leaders to understand their own impact, recognize the experiences of others and create environments where people can perform without sacrificing trust or humanity.That makes the distinction between “soft skills” and business skills increasingly difficult to defend. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank bring experience across executive leadership, HR, talent acquisition, leadership development and organizational consulting to examine what this means for organizations and how companies can make these competencies part of how leaders are developed, assessed and promoted.The timing matters. Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace report found that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, while manager engagement fell to 22%. At the same time, a recent Forbes article on workplace trust highlights how trust is built through the everyday ways leaders communicate, connect and follow through. Together, these dynamics raise an increasingly important question: Are self-awareness, empathy and compassion simply “soft skills,” or are they now essential leadership competencies?

expert panel

Hybrid and distributed work have changed how employees experience connection. Members of the HR Think Tank share how managers can make belonging part of everyday leadership through intentional communication, equitable access, stronger relationships and better work design.For years, organizations could confuse physical proximity with connection. Employees saw one another in hallways, gathered before meetings and absorbed informal information simply by being nearby. Hybrid and distributed work have made it much harder to assume those experiences will happen naturally.That matters because hybrid work remains a durable part of the workplace. Gallup's 2026 tracking shows that 52% of U.S. employees in remote-capable jobs work in hybrid arrangements, while 26% work exclusively remotely.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank say the answer is not to recreate the office online. Instead, managers must deliberately build belonging into how they communicate, distribute opportunities, recognize contributions and design the work itself.