Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter have contributed their powerful thought leadership to the field from the get-go. Their previous book together, The Mind of The Leader, focused on three foundational qualities for leadership: mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion. In Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way, they zero in on how to apply these leadership skills to difficult situations.
Questions about bringing compassion to difficult situations are among the most common queries we receive at the Center for Compassionate Leadership. “Is it possible to lay people off compassionately?” “How do I give developmental feedback compassionately?” Compassionate Leadership is targeted directly at these tough questions. Leaders are encouraged to take a bigger picture perspective when “hard things” arise, and to recognize that in large organizations, every decision will have some people who benefit and some who do not.
Leaders are called to balance many different factors when making their decisions. In doing so, it is common to encounter situations when there is a conflict between different factors – between different individual interests, between different team interests, or between organizational and individual needs. Required layoffs and team or organizational restructuring are among the clearest examples of these potential conflicts. At times, Compassionate Leadership runs the risk of reinforcing what we see as a false dichotomy – that organizational needs and individual needs are consistently in conflict, as when they write, “And therein lies the eternal tension for any leader and any company – balancing the long-term needs of the company with the short-term, individual needs of people….” In our view, the skillful practice of compassionate leadership has the potential to powerfully align both organizational and individual objectives, reducing the tension between the two.
The book hits its full stride as it describes the authors’ principle of the Wise Compassion Flywheel. Wise compassion begins with “caring presence,” which is supported by mindfulness practices. Leaders who practice caring presence are able to discern the required action, and are called upon to exercise “caring courage.” Caring courage, in turn, is carried out through the final two arms of the flywheel, “caring candor” and “caring transparency.” Each of these actions deepen trust and connection which further strengthen the leader’s ability to practice caring presence at the start of the flywheel.
The book’s momentum builds through each of the chapters describing the compassion flywheel, and the reader can imagine that putting these principles into action could have a sustainable impact on their leadership. The power of each arm of the flywheel – presence, courage, candor, and transparency – is that it can be practiced in each moment of a leader’s day. These are practices that may be chosen in each moment, and the more they are practiced, the more skillful leaders become at using them. For today’s time-pressed leader, practicing in the moment is essential.
Can we imagine organizations who view compassion for the individual and the goals of the organization pointing in the same direction? We need leaders bringing more compassion into existing structures, and Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way brings effective practices to do just that. With the challenges facing the world today, these are important, necessary efforts.
Approaching compassionate leadership with the objective to create maximum alignment between the individual and the organization requires bravery, strength, and wisdom. Courageous leaders who begin with compassion as their guiding principle may be the ultimate force needed to completely change the many broken systems that exist in the world.