What is Compassion?

Compassionate leadership starts with compassion. The Dalai Lama has said, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” We believe that this principle can be applied directly to organizations and to leadership. Compassion and love aren’t words that get shared extensively in organizational settings. But we think that they are necessities for the success of leaders, their organizations, and the world. So, let’s explore: What is compassion?

Compassion is the awareness of the suffering of others combined with the desire to help relieve the suffering and remove the causes of the suffering. We view four key elements to compassion:?

1. The awareness of the suffering of another,?
2. Connecting to the other person in a way that makes us feel that the one suffering is worthy of our attention,?
3. Sharing the feeling of the suffering of the other, feeling empathetic resonance, and?
4. Taking action to relieve or lessen the suffering, as well as take action to remove the causes of suffering where possible.?

Awareness

It’s right there in the definition of compassion: “the awareness of the suffering of others…” The path to compassion and compassionate leadership begins with awareness. We all have blind spots and limitations that cause us to overlook, ignore, or even flat-out deny the suffering of others. Compassion calls for a non-judgmental awareness of what is actually occurring in the world around us.

To cultivate this awareness, we must be willing to see the world just as it is. Our natural tendency, however, is to see the things that confirm how we believe the world to be and avoid seeing those things that make us feel uncomfortable. So, with an intention to break through this confirmation bias, ask yourself, “What do I avoid seeing?” Be willing to lean into these places of discomfort and come to recognize them just as they are.?

We also need to be aware of the way that the world offers its experience to us. Social media feeds are not a realistic or proportionally representational view of life. If we truly want to be aware of what is, we must be willing to look beyond the highly curated personas that many people offer.

In organizations, a singular focus on results sends a subtle (or not so subtle) message that worker suffering is not welcome at work: “You’ve got a job to do. Just work through the pain to get the work done.” This attitude makes it challenging for individuals to acknowledge difficulties, which has the paradoxical impact of reducing engagement, wellbeing, and productivity.?

Connection

Simply being aware of someone else’s suffering is only the first step toward action. When we see the suffering, we must believe that the other person is worthy of our attention. Because we don’t always show up open-hearted and accepting of everyone, it requires intentional practice. Prime barriers to make that human connection include conscious or unconscious judgment of the other’s behavior, and differences in background, gender, beliefs, status, or any number of divergent factors.

If we see someone suffering, and we determine that they “deserve” their circumstances, we may very well not make any effort to help them out. If we see an unhoused person, and think, “this is where addicts wind up,” we are not likely to step in and help. To connect, we must go deeper and see more than simple causes and effects. We are all human, subject to so many external forces, that it is impossible to accurately assign blame. Even if “this is where addicts wind up,” we are not privy to the root of the addiction or underlying trauma.?

Can we intend to have our love and compassion flow to everyone? The practice “Just Like Me ” is a helpful tool for deepening our compassion for all. It allows us to cultivate a connection with people near to us, challenging people, and people we don’t even know. We focus on the common threads that connect us – we are all human, and we all suffer.?

Empathic Resonance

Empathy is the shared experience of feeling the emotions of another. You feel their emotions as your own. While we can share empathy across a full range of emotions, empathy as a component of compassion is specifically related to sharing the suffering of another.?

Does compassion really require that we feel the pain of another? With sympathy, pity or other emotions other than empathy, we will respond to our own personal reaction to the suffering. Our action will be focused on our own pain. This pain could be guilt. It could be simple discomfort. Whatever it is, responding to our own feelings that arise will not be effective, and could even be counterproductive, if our feelings aren’t resonant with the one suffering.

We cannot stay in empathic resonance, though, or the experience of suffering will take us down, and may even lead us to burnout. It is critical to move to the next step of compassion – action. Empathy plus action creates compassion, and the neurology of empathy and compassion show why it is so important to continue through empathic resonance to action. Research by Tania Singer and Olga Klimecki has shown that empathy with one who is suffering creates a response in the pain receptors in the brain, while compassion’s response arises in the brain’s reward area. Moving through empathic distress into compassionate action has been shown to reduce the risk of burnout.

Action

The final and essential element of compassion is moving into action. Compassionate action requires wisdom and discernment to recognize what form of action will be of most support and the courage to take the identified action.?

In taking action, first we must discern what is needed. This understanding arises from the three preceding elements of compassion. Awareness helps us see the world exactly as it is. Connection brings us to view the world with an open, non-judgmental heart. Finally, empathy helps us understand in the deepest way what will be most effective. All this situational wisdom is informed by your lived experience, and the greater wisdom of our interconnected nature.?

Moving from knowing what to do and doing it can be a huge leap. This is where courage is required. The original root of the word courage is heart or core. Tap into that deepest part of yourself to summon the strength to act in the way you have discerned.?

Compassionate action can take a wide range of forms. It can be direct support through the carrying of the burden of someone else for a while. It can come through emotional support and compassionate listening. It can even come in the form of wishing well for someone.

Despite our best intentions, we can’t always end the suffering or move into action. Sometimes all we can do is be present. Think about the power of compassion in palliative care at the end of life. Offering presence may be all the “action” that’s possible. Yet that courageous act of compassionate presence is indeed the most loving response.

In Closing…

As humans, we all have the capacity for compassion within us. These challenging times call for us to move into action to create compassionate solutions. With intention and practice we can each contribute to a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world.

If you are curious to discover more about how to put compassion into action in leadership and organizations, please consider joining our global learning community of compassionate leaders. The next eight-week online training begins October 24, 2023. You can learn more about it here . We look forward to exploring compassion together.

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