Skims cofounder Emma Grede says leaders can be empathetic without treating employees like family

• Emma Grede said leaders need to balance empathy with what's best for business.
• The SKIMS cofounder said being a boss doesn't mean treating everyone like family.
• However, she believes employees shouldn't be blindsided by tough conversations about their performance.

Skims cofounder Emma Grede said good leaders won't let their employees get blindsided at work.

During an appearance on the "Boardroom" podcast hosted by Rich Kleiman, the entrepreneur discussed how she approaches difficult decisions as a leader.

To Grede, effective leadership is about balancing empathy with what the business needs.

"You can, at once, be an extremely empathetic leader and have the needs of your team and your people at the absolute forefront of what you're doing," Grede told Kleiman. "And yet, what you must have is an enterprise mentality to do what is right for the business."

At the end of the day, a company also needs to be financially healthy before it can properly support its people, Grede said.

As founder and CEO, she said her first responsibility is to make decisions that serve the business, even when that means acknowledging that some employees may no longer be the right fit as it grows.

"As the leader, you have to make difficult decisions," she said. "It is not my job to be your friend. It is not my job to treat everybody as though this were a family. But that doesn't mean that you miss empathy or that you treat people badly."

Grede recalled a lesson from Mellody Hobson, the former chair of the Starbucks board, who taught her that being honest does not require being harsh or brutal.

As the cofounder of several consumer brands, including denimwear brand Good American and sports fashion brand Off Season, Grede said she works in an environment where "radical honesty" is required.

That means employees are rarely caught off guard by feedback about their performance, Grede said — and because those conversations happen regularly, "nobody's surprised."

"It is not the job of me or any other woman in a position of leadership to have to kind of cottonball everybody along the way," she said.

"We run a business just like anybody else, and that is with an enterprise mentality to do the best things that are right for the company," Grede added.

Beyond her approach to leadership, Grede has also been candid about the demanding work ethic and level of commitment she believes are necessary to build a successful career and business.

In May 2025, Grede said she sees it as a red flag when job candidates talk about work-life balance. "Work-life balance is your problem. It isn't your employer's responsibility," she said.

In April, she took a firm stance against remote work, calling it "career suicide" and saying that being around colleagues can be especially valuable early in a career.

Grede's approach to work and motherhood also sparked discussion earlier this year when she described herself as a "max three-hour mum" on weekends in an April interview with The Wall Street Journal.