Today, there are countless ways to monitor and track our existence. We can count and quantify everything from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep. While each of us value tracking different things that are important to us, these choices turn into our ways of being in the world. Author Annie Dillard famously wrote, “How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.”
Compassionate leaders know how we spend our days directly affects our leadership impact. By setting an intention to approach our minute-by-minute interactions with wholehearted presence and positive regard, we deepen our human experience and relationships.
Who are you connected with when you are …
Working
Greeting
Celebrating
Mourning
Planning
Collaborating
Resting
How rich are those connections, and what could you do to improve the quality of these connections? With greater awareness, comes more opportunity for choicefulness.
What if, in this new year, you chose to notice and enrich your connections with others?
Compassionate leaders recognize that quality connections are the building blocks of relationships. And while good work can certainly be accomplished alone, it is much more rewarding when done in collaboration and partnership with valued relationships at the core.
High-quality connections are interactive exchanges where shared humanity is honored, positive energy is exchanged or created, and dependent on quality engagement.
If you chose to incorporate more high-quality connections, focus on three subjective components.
1. Start With Positive Regard
Compassionate leaders believe in the power of our common humanity. Everyone is worthy of connection and belonging. As you think about your days, who do you interact with on a regular basis, and who would you like to be more connected with?
The challenging invitation here is to include people you wouldn’t necessarily choose to give your time to.
Try This Practice: Just Like Me
The more we perceive someone as similar to ourselves, the greater empathy we have for that person. Our enhanced empathy leads to more kindness and compassionate action toward that person. We can develop these positive feelings by choosing to practice. Once we welcome another as “just like us,” and wish them well, it reinforces a circle of empathy, compassion, and kindness.
2. Focus On Vitality In Connection
High-quality connections at their best are life-giving. They fill us up with excitement, warmth, and possibility. Do you add creative or constructive energy to a connection? Or does the interaction leave you or the other person feeling unsure, withdrawn, or depleted?
Try This Practice: Vitality Check
After an interaction with a person you regularly encounter, find a moment to do a quick energy reflection. If possible, close your eyes and replay what just happened. Then reflect on questions like:
What energy arose in you?
Are your muscles feeling tense or calm?
Are you feeling depleted or anxious?
Are you hopeful or curious about what could come next?
As a compassionate leader, how you offer up yourself in these moments can really make or break a connection.
Look for clues in those you are leading by asking things like:
How much did the other person light up while we were interacting?
What did their body language suggest?
What created excitement in them?
And, based on what you observed in this interaction, what could you bring to the next opportunity to connect?
3. Center On Mutuality
Mutuality arises when both people in a conversation are both fully participating and engaged. We all know that feeling when we are seen, heard, and understood by another. It doesn’t come from a place of polite head nods. It comes from a place of authentic emotional resonance.
Creating space for mutuality requires us to bring openness to the interaction, including a generous interpretation to the feelings and behavior of the other. An exclusive focus on our own agenda closes the door to mutuality. Mutuality arises from shared vulnerability. When there is a power differential or deep differences, we will need to bring extra intention to create mutual connection.
Try This Practice: Two-way Street
Challenge yourself to foster mutuality where it doesn’t usually exist. Can you show up without an agenda or preconceived notion of what the other person can offer and what might unfold? Within yourself, strive to show up openly and vulnerably. Can you listen compassionately with full presence?
What new way did you experience this relationship? Was there anything that emerged that surprised or delighted you?
Back in 1996, composer Jonathan Larson wrote the lyrics for RENT’s famous song Seasons of Love. He counts,
“525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.”
How will you measure this year? Will you focus on elevating your moment to moment connections so that they include positive regard, vitality, and mutuality? Compassionate leaders know these choices make all the difference.
For more information: “High Quality Connections” by John Paul Stephens, Emily Heaphy & Jane E. Dutton in Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship