Why Compassion Matters for Leadership Development

Leadership is the ability to motivate others toward a shared goal. As individuals develop their capacity to lead, what role does compassion play? The question arises in each new compassionate leadership session we facilitate: “Can I be compassionate and hold people accountable?” Or it may be asked a different way, “Can I be compassionate without having my team take advantage of me?”

Rather than detract from leadership strength and effectiveness, compassion is a positive contributor on many dimensions. Compassion plays a central role in leadership development through its ability to strengthen leaders, enhance team results, build cultures of safety, connection, and belonging, and ultimately create a world of flourishing for everyone.

Compassion strengthens leaders.?

At the Center for Compassionate Leadership, we believe that compassionate leadership work begins with the work of inner compassion: self-compassion and non-judgmental awareness. How leaders deal with (or don’t deal with) their own challenges has a powerful influence on their relationships with colleagues and team members. By starting with self-compassion, leaders develop a more grounded foundation for themselves which will amplify every aspect of their leadership journey. For example, leaders who don’t feel their own sense of psychological safety have a difficult time creating it for others. Leaders who don’t feel like they are good enough will have a hard time creating a sense of belonging for others.?

Leaders must cultivate a calm, settled presence and embody the emotional intelligence required to recognize their own emotions and those of their team. This non-judgmental awareness of what is going on at any given moment is what empowers leaders to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting emotionally. Practicing this awareness is the second key part of inner compassion.

Compassionate leadership improves organizational performance.?

The fear that compassion will cause teams to slack off and culture to become soft stems from a couple of common misunderstandings. The first misunderstanding is believing that compassion is only comprised of nurturing behaviors. Compassion has two mutually supporting expressions: nurturing compassion and courageous compassion. Yes, compassionate leaders care for their team members in humane, considerate ways that evidence nurturing compassion. And, they also must make difficult decisions and confront behaviors that are leading to team underperformance or are harmful to others. This requires courageous compassion.

The second myth that leads to a misunderstanding of compassion is that harshness such as shaming or humiliating others creates motivation. Research shows that understanding others is a much more effective motivator than shame or blame. Gallup, in their State of the Global Workplace: 2022 , estimate that the loss of productivity to disengagement is $7.8 trillion. Cultures that lack safety, connection, and belonging are the cause of this massive disengagement. Compassion is, in fact, the antidote.?

Compassionate leaders show an understanding of their colleagues through how they hear and see them, and how they react to them in times of mistakes or failure. This leads to a wide range of organizational benefits including more effective and more creative teams as well as strengthened employee connection to and engagement in their job.

Compassionate leadership is the path forward for the complex problems facing the world.?

The challenges facing our world can seem overwhelming, with issues such as polarization, social injustice, and climate change that threaten our very survival. Recognition of our shared common humanity is an action that empowers compassionate leaders to lead the world on a path forward to flourishing for all. We can no longer define success as that which profits our specific community, organization, or tribe. Actions that leave the earth worse off by extracting value for the benefit of some at a greater cost to others have brought us to this tipping point.

A world where everyone truly has an opportunity to flourish is possible, and compassionate leaders hold the key to that world by taking actions that include and value all stakeholders, not just a narrow few. The impact our actions have on suppliers, customers, employees, and even competitors echo around the world impacting us all. Leadership development that includes this perspective will change the world.

In closing…?

Creating the organizations and the world that we would like to see is possible. It is up to us, and it begins with the work of inner compassion. It also requires courage to lead with vulnerability, which will allow our compassionate efforts to flow outward to change our teams, our organizations, and the world.

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