Empathy is an essential non-technical skill. If you lack it, you might be able to be successful by some metrics, but your impact will be limited and your colleagues (and friends) will constantly need to compensate for your inadequacy in this respect. Fortunately, empathy is something that can be taught and learned, and if it is determined that you are lacking in empathy, you should focus a large amount of your personal and professional development energies towards acquiring more of it.
I will write more on this later.
(c) Copyright Jeff Hammond, 2020. No reuse permitted except by permission from the author.