I have great empathy for the challenges people face each day.

Almost everything a person is carrying is off-camera. The colleague who missed the deadline was up three nights with a parent; you find that out in April, by accident, from somebody else.

Empathy isn't guessing correctly what's going on with people — you rarely will. It's leaving a margin. Assuming there is a reason you can't see, and behaving as if there is, before any evidence arrives. Most of the time the evidence never arrives at all, and the margin has to do the work on its own.