Across time, geography, and industry, we have seen leaders show strong consistency in their questions about compassionate leadership. This week, two new cohorts began their eight-week journey in our Compassionate Leadership Certification Training. We asked these incoming leaders from around the world about their top curiosities pertaining to compassionate leadership.
For this question, “What are you curious about when it comes to compassionate leadership?”, we asked participants to choose one, two, or three curiosities from a list of eight, and here is what they named.
Compassionate leaders are first and foremost seeking ways to bring compassion into their organizations.
The two most common curiosities were “How can I use compassion to create a culture of belonging for everyone?”, and “How do I operationalize compassion where I work?” The first of those curiosity questions piqued the curiosity of 57% of respondents and 50% of respondents were curious about the second question. While leaders understand the innate value of compassionate leadership, these responses reinforce that leaders are looking for guidance most on how to do it.
Research published in the Harvard Business Review shows that “91% (of leaders) said compassion is very important for leadership, and 80% would like to enhance their compassion but do not know how.” This research confirms, that while there is a strong appeal, putting compassionate leadership into practice is hard.
Burnout and resilience are high on the list of leader’s concerns.
The Center for Compassionate Leadership’s model begins from the inside out. Learning how to operationalize compassion and create compassionate culture begins with taking care of oneself, to support leading from a grounded position of strength. The upcoming cohort participants’ third most common curiosity was “How can I use compassion to strengthen my resilience or avoid burnout?”, with 46% of the survey respondents listing this as one of their top three curiosities.
Interest in burnout and resilience has grown substantially over the last three years as the pandemic has taken its toll on all of us. Compassionate leadership is a powerful antidote to burnout and a tool to support resilience. Leaders who support their own resilience are better resourced and better able to turn to the bigger issue, tackling the systemic causes of burnout.
People are curious about the ways compassion can be applied with strength.
The next most common curiosity, named by 36% of the participants, was “Can I be compassionate and hold people accountable?” This curiosity often arises when people consider compassion as only a nurturing practice. Compassion also requires great courage and strength. A fireman running into a burning building to rescue someone is engaging in a powerful and fierce compassionate act.
Creating accountability is compassionate on many levels. Someone engaged in negative behaviors – something for which they need to be held accountable – is causing hardship or challenge for those around them. But more than that, their negative actions are harmful to themselves. It harms their reputation. It harms their future opportunities. It creates division and separates them from the natural connection we all have with each other.
Yes, holding people accountable is essential for managing teams and getting things done. But doing so compassionately gets things done and helps restore people to greater wholeness.
In closing…
Curiosity is a core competence of compassionate leaders. As you work to bring compassion into your organization, what are you curious about?
How the survey was taken.
In the opening week of the two cohorts of Compassionate Leadership Certification training beginning February 14 and 15, 2023, participants were asked to choose one, two, or three statements from a choice of nine that best represented what they were most curious about.