Why Empathy is a Critical CFO Skill

• Technical skills are a given for CFOs, but soft skills like empathy are the true differentiators.
• Successful finance leaders must "put themselves in everyone else's shoes" to drive alignment.
• It's not about being the "no" person; it's about understanding the business context behind the ask.
• Empathy allows finance to translate complex data into narratives that resonate with other departments.

When asked what skill finance leaders often underestimate, Caitlin Haberberger didn't say "financial modeling" or "tax strategy." She said empathy. In the high-pressure world of finance, where metrics and margins rule, it's easy to get frustrated when other departments don't seem to "get it."

"Sometimes you can get frustrated because why didn't so-and-so understand that this margin was really important?" Caitlin recalls. But effective leadership requires understanding that everyone has a different lens on the business. A sales leader sees revenue potential; a product leader sees user experience; a finance leader sees risk and return.

The CFO's job is not just to police the budget but to bridge these perspectives. By practicing empathy—understanding the "why" behind a marketing spend or an engineering hire—finance leaders can move from being blockers to being strategic enablers. This approach helps build trust, making it easier to have the hard conversations when the numbers actually necessitate a "no."

Stepping Back to Move Forward

Reflecting on her own career path, Caitlin admits that she "wasted a lot of years" early on by keeping her head down. "I thought, you show up, you work your butt off, you do what you're told... and good things will happen," she explains. While that work ethic served her to a point, it created a ceiling on her impact.

The real leaps in her career didn't come from working harder on the spreadsheets; they came from stepping back. "I wish I'd realized earlier... that the real incremental jumps in my impact... came when I was actually going out and having more conversations with people." This underscores a critical lesson for aspiring CFOs: isolation is the enemy of influence. You cannot lead a business if you only know the numbers. You have to know the people who drive them.

The "Underdog" Advantage

Interestingly, Caitlin attributes part of her success to feeling like an "underdog." Because her education wasn't originally in accounting, she felt she had to learn everything on the go. This "kept me on my toes" and fostered a deep curiosity about the business itself, rather than just the accounting rules.

This curiosity feeds directly back into empathy. When you don't assume you know everything, you ask questions. You listen. You try to understand the machinery of the business. Great finance leaders, Caitlin notes, "deeply understand the business and have a passion" for it. It's not about loving the ledger; it's about loving the mission the ledger represents.