[patjenk]

Maybe I am misunderstanding empathy, but the following paragraph sounds more like sympathy: "But when it comes to difficult conversations, I’ve found that empathy has a side-effect. I can get so focused on how the conversation might affect the other person’s feelings that I lose sight of why the conversation is needed in the first place."

In the above circumstance, I thought empathizing with the person would be understanding they (may) benefit from the information you're providing. Sympathizing with them would be reacting to their feelings, which seems to be the approach here.

Am I wrong?

An analogy could be made to a person who recently had a friend die. Sympathizing would be reacting to their sadness and feeling bad for them. Empathizing would be understanding how they're feeling and taking steps to support them (e.g. spending quality time with them).