By Shaila Sham
for the 2025 Risky Women Writing Competition, presented in partnership with Ocorian
The old mantra of “don’t mix the personal with the professional” is giving way to a new truth: authenticity is non-negotiable.
In 2025, as women lead nations and reshape boardrooms, emotions are no longer liabilities. They are leadership tools. The old mantra of “don’t mix the personal with the professional” is giving way to a new truth: authenticity is non-negotiable. In a world more complex than ever, being human is the greatest strength a risk professional can bring to the table. Empathy is not just compatible with effective risk management and compliance but a powerful tool that makes it better.
Empathy in Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) means understanding the people behind the policies: the employees who hesitate to speak up, the customers affected by decisions, the communities impacted by corporate behaviour. Risk does not arise in a vacuum. It starts with people, and understanding people is where empathetic leadership shines.
Consider the Wells Fargo scandal, where staff were pressured into unethical behaviour. It was not just a failure of controls; it was a failure of culture- a failure of leaders listening with understanding. An empathetic GRC framework would have empowered employees to raise concerns without fear, flagging misconduct early before reputational and financial damage escalated.
I experienced the human side of risk management firsthand in my role at Ocorian. While working in the payment processing team, I was responsible for making a payment to a woman’s bank account following her husband’s death. The payment was intended to support their children. However, the beneficiary’s bank was based in Lebanon, a country classified as high-risk. Per our protocols, I paused the transaction and escalated the case to compliance, submitting a risk screen report that showed no red flags. But more than just ticking boxes, it mattered to me that we treated this case with sensitivity. While we awaited investigation, I kept in mind the emotional weight behind this payment. Once cleared, we processed it promptly. In that moment, empathy did not replace compliance but rather guided how I engaged with it.
In compliance, empathy is especially transformative. At its core, compliance is about influencing behaviour, getting people to follow rules and uphold values. Fear may work in the short term, but empathy builds trust. Leaders who listen, explain, and model integrity create workplaces where doing the right thing becomes the norm. Research reveals that employees in high-trust environments are more likely to report misconduct and less likely to violate policy. Trust begins with empathy.
This is where women are reshaping the field. For decades, women in risk and compliance were expected to prove they were “tough enough” for the job, often by adopting a more traditionally ‘manly’ persona: detached, emotionless, and always composed. But today, that narrative is changing. Now, many are flipping that narrative, leading with emotional intelligence and changing how compliance is done. Empathy, long viewed as a “soft” skill, is proving to be a strategic advantage.
In my own experience, leadership that combines decisiveness with empathy makes all the difference. My head of department is not only a powerhouse with undeniable boss skills, but she also embodies empathy. During our monthly one-to-one meetings, she creates an open space where we can speak candidly, share suggestions, and even challenge the status quo. This blend of strength and approachability not only fosters trust but also drives innovation in how we manage risk and compliance.
I am also proud to add that within our payment processing team, this spirit of empathy is shared among us. We are a group made up entirely of women, with one male manager, and we truly support one another. When one team member is overwhelmed with urgent cases, others step in without hesitation. We divide tasks, close backlogs together, and even manage logistics like wet ink signatures for each other when someone is working remotely. It is a quiet form of leadership- no big speeches, just showing up for one another every single day. That is what empathy looks like in practice. For me, it looks like this.
Consider the growing emphasis regulators place on culture. Financial conduct authorities, especially in the UK and Australia, now assess firms based on leadership tone, openness to challenge, and psychological safety. These are not checkbox controls but people-centered principles. GRC professionals who lead with empathy are already ahead of the curve.
Some skeptics still view empathy as too soft for risk. But there is nothing soft about recognizing early warning signs, protecting whistleblowers, or speaking hard truths with compassion. Empathy helps GRC professionals anticipate not just technical breaches but human vulnerabilities like burnout, discrimination, and ethical fatigue that can grow into real threats if ignored.
In a world where technology increasingly dominates, human insight is more valuable than ever. Artificial Intelligence may detect suspicious transactions, but it cannot understand the silence in a team too scared to speak. Compliance systems can issue alerts, but only people can ask, “Why didn’t they feel safe enough to tell us sooner?” As risks grow more complex, empathy will become a GRC superpower.
The women rising in risk today are not just enforcing policies. They are rebuilding trust in institutions, in leadership, and in compliance itself. They are showing that strength and empathy are not opposites but partners. And they are changing what leadership in GRC looks like!
If we want a future where organizations do not just avoid risk but actively protect people, then empathy must be central to our strategies. Not as an afterthought, but as a core competency. Compliance with compassion is not weakness- it is wisdom.