[The Editors' Verdict] SPC, Learn from Female Leadership

As the Boycott Spreads, SPC Rushes to Apologize
Time to Strengthen Empathy, Consideration, Harmony, and Listening Skills

Huh Young-in, chairman of SPC Group, apologized on the 21st for the accident in which a worker in his 20s was caught in a machine and died at the Pyeongtaek factory of the affiliate SPL. This was his second apology following the one on the 17th. SPC’s management also separately announced measures to prevent recurrence of the accident.

Even though the group chairman bowed twice in apology, doubts remain about the sincerity of the apology and the effectiveness of the measures. Investing 100 billion won in expanding safety facilities and automating equipment, conducting industrial safety and health inspections at workplaces, forming a safety management committee, improving employee working conditions... Aren’t these just the same old prescriptions that get repeated like a record every time an accident happens?

SPC’s management hurriedly issued another apology and countermeasures as a boycott movement targeting the group’s entire product line spread like wildfire on social networking services (SNS) and elsewhere. However, they seemed to have misjudged why the public was angry.

SPC overlooked a similar incident that occurred a week before this accident without taking any preventive measures. The day after the fatal accident, the deceased’s coworkers who were suffering from trauma were made to continue working at the accident site. The company even sent Paris Baguette bread to the deceased’s funeral home as a condolence gift from the company’s event support. It was only natural that the company faced a flood of criticism asking, “Why did you follow the rules for events but not the safety regulations?” in response to such absurd explanations.

This careless indifference seems largely due to SPC management’s lack of empathy. Empathy is an important leadership competency for managers. So much so that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is sometimes called the Chief Empathy Officer.

Neuroscientist Christian Keysers, who studied mirror neurons and the mechanisms of brain empathy, said in his book How Humans Empathize with Each Other that humans are connected through a mechanism called the shared circuit. Events that happen to others affect almost all areas of one’s brain, so we are designed to empathize, that is, to connect with others.

Did SPC’s management fail to do this? (Christian Keysers also noted that activation of the shared circuit can occur spontaneously but can be modulated by how people feel about each other.) If they had thought about and empathized with the situation and problems of the workers at the factory from the workers’ perspective, this fatal accident or the boycott might not have happened. Especially during a time of great uncertainty and anxiety caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic for over three years, the worsening war between Russia and Ukraine, and global high interest rates and inflation, the need and value of empathy have become even more important.

Empathy is generally a leadership trait where women tend to have an advantage over men. A similar discussion took place during the session at the ‘2022 Women Leaders Forum’ hosted by Asia Economy, which ended on the 19th. In the career (maturity) session discussion themed “Career growth, self-awareness, and concerns about maturity,” participants agreed that “leadership is shifting from the old ‘charismatic leadership’ to ‘leadership based on empathy, consideration, harmony, and listening,’” and that women are now in a favorable position.

Of course, being male does not mean one’s empathy is necessarily lower than that of women. This refers to average levels of empathy. It may be influenced by genetic imprints on the brain from the division of roles in hunter-gatherer societies, where men focused on war and hunting and women on household and child-rearing.

However, SPC’s all-male management prioritized immediate profits and failed to empathize with workers’ hardships and safety. As of the end of June, SPC Group has 68 affiliates (only SPC Samlip is publicly listed). How many female employees, let alone female CEOs or executives, are there in these companies? If they are not confident in improving empathy immediately, why not at least increase the proportion of women in (senior) positions?

Nam Seung-ryul, Head of Issue Investigation Department

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.