Compassionate leadership doesn’t mean giving until you’re empty. By setting healthy boundaries and building supportive roles, routines, networks, and culture, leaders sustain energy while caring for others. This balance prevents burnout, fosters resilience and trust, and creates workplaces where compassion fuels both human connection and lasting performance.

How do we change teams, organizations, and systems to exhibit greater compassion competence? Compassion flows from the inside out, so an important place to start is with self-compassion. In celebration of International Self-Compassion Day, four leading thinkers and practitioners of compassionate leadership share how they view self-compassion as important for leaders.

At every turn, it feels like we're at each other's throats. Headlines showcase another argument, another fight, another cycle of division. The temptation in these moments is to fight back – to defend our position with equal force, to escalate. But that only intensifies the violence. That only deepens the fractures. What we need instead is cooperation and collaboration.

We’re living through what some describe as a polycrisis: overlapping, compounding challenges of climate change, social inequality, political instability, global conflict, and rapid technological disruption. We’re stretched thin and often unsupported at work. Stress has become normalized, showing up in organizational culture, morale, and performance. And now, added to the mix: anxiety about A.I.

Adversity is an inevitable part of life. We all experience setbacks, struggles, and hardships that challenge our sense of stability and well-being. Yet, amid difficulty, there is an often-overlooked force that can sustain us: joy. Joy is not the absence of hardship but the presence of something deeper – an inner strength that allows us to navigate challenges with resilience and hope.

In this Compassionate Leadership Case Study, we explore how Pinuccia Contino, the Deputy Director for Consumers – European Commission, used a department reorganization as an opportunity to link the power of well-being and compassion to the pillars of her department’s work, aligning with both the values and purpose of the organization.

Compassion has the power to help employees flourish and create stronger, more innovative organizations. The evidence is clear. Creating compassionate organizational environments leads to significant benefits for the organization: lower turnover, higher employee engagement and satisfaction, greater creativity and innovation, and higher-quality connections with deeper trust. But, there is one big catch…

Throughout history, the action of courageous individuals has led humanity through challenging moments into a period of greater flourishing. How do compassionate leaders respond in the face of challenge without disengaging, burning out or becoming overwhelmed? We all want to play our part, as far as we can. Here are some ways to help move into action and make a positive contribution.

Awe changes us. The changes are beneficial for our inner wellbeing as well as for our relationships, sense of possibility, feelings of satisfaction, and happiness. We can experience awe anywhere we are. The more we practice, the more equipped we will be to lead compassionately.