An analysis of 100 breaches and thousands of resultant press reports reveals that empathy and transparency, not perfection, define the new standard of crisis leadership. While in legal and professional parlance the term empathy can be seen as soft and not willing to go to the mattresses with aggression, it is actually a superpower. It has helped uncover critical facts, earn trust and keep clients out of proverbial hot water time and time again. The breach research conducted for this article shows that empathy is not only good business, but also a powerful risk mitigation technique. It builds real and enduring trust with regulators, demonstrating that a company and its incident response team are reliable doers and solvers. While assertiveness has its place, starting with empathy yields deeper insights and stronger relationships.
By showing humanity, the combined team of Lowenstein Sandler and Intrepid Agency has identified errors buried deep in log files, gained insight into legacy systems that clients were initially hesitant to acknowledge and built relationships that transcend transactional business to communicate with clarity. Empathy cuts through the corporate noise, the posturing, the politics, the fear, and gets to the truth, however uncomfortable – it is the reason results happen and the key ingredient when the phone rings in a breach. (subscriber only)
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