[roenxi]

I did invoke feelings - the example was someone paralysed with grief and another person coming over to console them. Which of those do you think is the sociopath?

Managers shouldn't be making empathy conditional in the usual sense of the word, it is necessary in all settings to maintain an orderly, pleasant and respectful workplace. The article probably means something similar to but ultimately not exactly empathy. Probably sympathy, which gets used in the same paragraph. High empathy, low sympathy is par for the course for a good manager in a hard conversation.