Compassionate leadership has the power to create thriving workplaces with employees who flourish. So, what is it? At the Center for Compassionate Leadership, we define it as treating those you lead with compassion in all situations and creating a culture of compassion that supports the flourishing of everyone connected with that culture. This definition is informed by its component parts: Compassion – the awareness of the suffering of others combined with the desire to help relieve that suffering and remove the causes of the suffering, and Leadership – the motivation of others toward shared goals.
Monica Worline and Jane Dutton, in their foundational book Awakening Compassion at Work, describe compassionate leadership as having two primary forms: leading with compassion and leading for compassion. Here we expand on their important construct to explore compassionate leadership in ways you can apply within your organization.
LEADING WITH COMPASSION
Leading with compassion emerges in the way leaders respond to others in everyday interactions. Do individual leaders interact with their teams and colleagues in ways that reduce stress and increase feelings of well-being, or do their actions add to stress? Leading in this way starts with self-compassion and awareness, helping leaders to clearly see their own emotions surrounding a given interaction as well as how the interaction is impacting others.
Take the example of the delivery of bad news. No one enjoys that job. The bad news is itself stressful, and some people may consider avoiding bringing the bad news or downplaying it, hoping that will be less stressful. In reality, when we defer facing something challenging, it often leads to greater stress in the long term. Compassionate leaders recognize their own emotions for not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, summon the courage to deliver the difficult news, and do so in ways that recognize and respect the impact on others.
Fortunately, most acts of leading with compassion are not so onerous. Taking a moment to acknowledge someone sincerely when you greet them can be a powerful practice that builds connection and creates a more positive emotional environment for everyone. Simply communicating with clarity about the purpose and context of a project is another compassionate leadership act.
When leading with compassion, every leader has the power to implement the practices of compassionate leadership – creating psychological safety, fostering a learning mindset, offering deep inclusion, and communicating compassionately – within their domain. Starting here brings about the most rapid change and creates momentum that is the basis for organizational transformation. Where can you build an oasis of compassion today?
LEADING FOR COMPASSION
To broaden the scope of compassion beyond individuals and teams takes longer and requires coordination among the actions of many. Leading for compassion to change systems is a heavier lift to implement. While leading with compassion can arise in each interaction we have with others, leading for compassion is the fruit of collective compassionate action accumulated and aggregated over time.
Success in leading for compassion can be seen through the group norms in the entire organization. Is kindness the norm or is meanness more common? How do people react to failures? Is it with shame and blame, or is it with an eye to cleaning up the broken pieces and discovering what learning is revealed by the failure? Do people feel free to speak up with a dissenting view and can they express that dissenting view with respect? Answers to these questions show whether compassionate leadership has moved beyond the practice of individual leaders.
While organizational culture is simply the cumulation of individual actions, there are ample opportunities for embedding compassionate norms in an organization to nurture and support individual action. It can start with hiring and onboarding, with the pursuit of candidates who display compassionate character, and by clearly expressing from day one behaviors and practices that are expected from everyone. Compassion can be included in performance standards as well. It can shape guidelines for how meetings are run, and how vendors, customers, and even competitors are treated.
There are two prerequisites for a compassionate culture. Top leadership must walk the walk. Without that, any initiative will be met with cynicism and resistance. The second prerequisite is a shared common language around compassion. The word compassion carries many interpretations, and clarity about what compassion is and isn’t supports the difficult work of courageous compassion.
Leading for compassion is critical for long term success because leaders come and leaders go. Compassionate environments tied to a specific individual will be temporary, while those that have been undergirded by policies, practices, and procedures provide the conditions for thriving employees and compassionate leaders.
COMPASSIONATE INTENTION MATTERS
Research is clear that the positive environment created by compassionate leaders yields powerful benefits for team members and the organization. That only makes sense. But there is one important caveat. If the goal of the compassionate action is to reap organizational benefits, they don’t materialize.
Compassion can’t be used as a tool to manipulate workers. Of course, that really isn’t compassion. Compassion is other-focused and must be defined by the needs of someone other than the compassionate individual. While compassion is highly motivating, it must be combined with other effective motivational tools: encouragement, specific boundaries, and clearly defined purpose for example. Compassion doesn’t reduce the need for difficult conversations or sanctions when team member behavior isn’t productive. Compassion offers a more effective way to engage in changing behaviors.
IN CLOSING…
It bears repeating – compassionate leadership has the power to create thriving workplaces with employees who flourish. Bringing the change necessary to create such an environment requires individuals who know how to lead with compassion as well as organization wide policies and practices that are created by courageous leaders who lead for compassion.
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. We regularly offer new programs in compassionate leadership training. If you’d like to learn more about participating in these upcoming courses, click here to complete our program inquiry form. We look forward to exploring compassion together.