FROM THE STAGE: EMPATHY AND HIGH PERFORMANCE. SAM SIMMONS ON THE FALSE CHOICES WE KEEP MAKING
Updated: 5 days ago
Empathy and high performance are not a trade-off. Sam Simmons told CultureCon 2026 that treating them as opposites is one of several false choices leaders keep making, and that the team is the one who pays for the false choice.
Key takeaways
Empathy and excellence aren't competing interests. They're complementary, and the leaders we admire most do both well.
Start with definitions. Most disagreement about these words is a telephone game: people are arguing about different things.
Watch for false choices. Agreement or understanding. High performance or burnout. Selfless or selfish. Praise or accountability. Each one is an either/or that should be an and.
Telling people early is a sign of respect, even when they don't get a vote in the outcome.
Vague feedback isn't kind, it's unkind. Praise and criticism both have to be specific to count.
Be crystal clear on the outcome, not the method. Clarity about what you expect isn't micromanagement.
Sam Simmons closed CultureCon 2026 as the final speaker at the end of day two. She opened by congratulating the room for making it that far, promised to keep it interesting, and then did something most closing speakers don't. She asked for questions, and meant it.
She'd spoken at CultureCon West the previous November in Las Vegas, and told the room the thing she'd loved most about that session was the quality of what people brought to it.
Simmons is the founder and principal of Grace Peak Consulting, which partners with leaders and organizations navigating change and growth. She has spent more than a decade in leadership roles at the intersection of HR, operations, and strategy, including at the LPGA, Spurs Sports & Entertainment, HubSpot, Wayfair, and Koya Partners. She also sits on the boards of Visible Hands and Pro Sports Assembly. Across all of it, as she puts it, the common thread remains people.
First, define the words
Before making her argument, Simmons defined both halves of it. That's a habit from her change management work, and her reasoning is worth stealing:
“I like to start with definitions because more and more, especially in my change management work, I find that through the telephone game, if you're not super clear, you get to the end of the process and you have a different expectation or definition of what I'm talking about.”
Empathy, in her framing, is our ability to truly understand another person's perspective, their situation, their feelings. Importantly, you can lend empathy to a person, and you can lend it to a situation too. It uses your skills, self-awareness, and what she calls surround-sound awareness to open a window where you'd otherwise only have seen the surface.
Excellence is the standards and expectations placed on us, or the ones we take on ourselves.
“Excellence quite frankly is a series of doors that open up as you reach each threshold.”
It's also, she added, the ability to keep asking good questions and to stay diligent despite adversity, and to exceed expectations.
Then the thesis:
“While these things are not mentioned together very often, and what we might have been taught or observed in others is that they're competing interests, they actually are complementary in more ways than one.”
The leaders we admire most tend to do both well. What makes them rare is how uncommon that pairing is in the businesses most of us actually work in.
The false choices
The most useful section of the session was a list of either/ors that get presented as facts. Simmons borrowed a frame from improv: many things get framed as an either/or when they're actually an and.
Her list, which she was clear isn't exhaustive:
Agreement or understanding. You can't have both, so having one or the other is wrong.
High performance or wellbeing. You can't be a high performer without burning out. And if you're not a high performer, maybe you're just complacent.
Selfless or selfish. You can't do something for yourself because that's inherently selfish, so pick one.
Appreciation or accountability. I can't show praise and gratitude and also hold people accountable.
The team or your own results. If I care too much about the team, I miss out for myself.
Everyone in the room knew those were false. Her point is what happens underneath them:
“Sometimes as you're talking to people, you start to discover there are fundamental beliefs that they hold true that anchor to some of these false choices that we're being pushed to make. Which is the same false choice that exists for empathy and excellence.”
She also pushed back on the binary framing itself, from experience:
“It's rare that I've done an investigation or looked into something where I'm like, open and shut case, I know exactly what happened.”
How the two muscles work together
The back half of the session was the hybrid approach: what it looks like in practice to use both muscles at once.
Transparency, especially about change. The instinct is to wait, because people will only get upset if you tell them early. Simmons rejects that.
“Just because people won't have a vote in what you're telling them doesn't mean they shouldn't get a voice, or at least a look at it in advance. That's a sign of respect.”
The empathetic move isn't softening the message. It's the courtesy of explaining the change, why it's happening, and the impact, and then staying present for the questions you can't yet answer.
“I might not have satisfying answers, but I'm still here and I'm still showing up. And as I get more information, I'll continue to share it with you.”
Clarity as kindness. Citing Brené Brown's clear is kind, unclear is unkind, Simmons applied it directly to feedback. If feedback is vague enough that the person leaves wondering what you meant, what to act on, or who you were talking about, it wasn't a good feedback conversation. Praise or constructive, it has to be specific.
Clear on outcomes, not methods. The clarity she's arguing for is about expectations: here's exactly what I expect, here's what I'm looking for, here's how I see the outcome playing out. Not micromanaging the methods someone uses to get there.
How you'd know if it's working
Asked in Q&A what signals tell you a culture has balanced empathy with excellence rather than trading one for the other, Simmons pointed at three, and at a habit.
The habit: she always told her teams at public companies to listen to the earnings calls, because that's where you learn how the business is actually doing. Then attrition, engagement, and revenue growth.
Her caveat matters as much as the metrics. Any one of them will dip for reasons outside your control. You want them all relatively healthy, and if they're unhealthy, you want to understand why and have a plan.
“Data is valuable for being able to help us understand the problem in front of us and hopefully to inspire us to action. Not for us to just look at the numbers like it's kind of the way that it is.”
The more informed you are, she said, even when you're not yet in a position to act, the better placed you are than simply letting it be.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Sam Simmons?
Sam Simmons is the founder and principal of Grace Peak Consulting, which partners with leaders, teams, and organizations navigating change and growth. She has more than a decade of leadership experience at the intersection of HR, operations, and strategy, including roles at the LPGA, Spurs Sports & Entertainment, HubSpot, Wayfair, and Koya Partners, and serves on the boards of Visible Hands and Pro Sports Assembly. She spoke at CultureCon 2026 in Madison and at CultureCon West 2025 in Las Vegas.
What does “empathy is not the enemy of excellence” mean?
It means the two are complementary rather than competing. Empathy is the ability to genuinely understand another person's perspective or situation; excellence is the standards and expectations you hold. Simmons argues that treating them as a trade-off is a false choice, and that the most admired leaders demonstrate both simultaneously.
What are the false choices leaders are pushed into?
Simmons named several: agreement versus understanding, high performance versus avoiding burnout, being selfless versus selfish, showing appreciation versus holding people accountable, and team focus versus individual results. Each is framed as either/or when it should be an and.
How do you deliver hard news empathetically?
Tell people early even when they don't get a vote, because advance notice is a form of respect. Explain the change, why it's happening, and the impact. Be honest when you don't have satisfying answers, stay present, and keep sharing as you learn more.
Why is vague feedback a problem?
Because clarity is a form of kindness. If someone leaves a feedback conversation unsure what you meant or what to act on, the conversation failed regardless of intent. Both praise and constructive feedback need to be specific, and the specificity should be about expected outcomes rather than prescribed methods.
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This recap was written with the help of AI from Sam Simmons's session at CultureCon 2026, then reviewed by our team.
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