The purpose of our research is to examine the relationship between subordinate ratings of a target-leader's empathic emotion and boss ratings of performance of that target-leader. Furthermore using hierarchical linearmodeling we assess whether the cultural background of the target-leader moderates this relationship. Our results show that leaders who are rated by their subordinates as engaging in behaviors that signal empathic emotion are perceived as better performers by their bosses. In addition we found that the GLOBE societal culture dimension of power distance was a significant cross-level moderator of the relationship between empathic emotion and performance. Implications for leading in cross-cultural and multicultural contexts are discussed.