LeadershipHQ Magazine 3rd Edition September Issue | Page 22

The

C word
by Sonia McDonald

Compassionate. Is it a dirty word in business and leadership? Or is
it the difference between highly effective and mediocre leaders?

When we think of highly effective
leaders, it’s often in terms of
their decisiveness, strategy and
clever thinking. It’s not often
that interpersonal traits like
compassion spring to mind.
Yet no leader can lead without
followers, and those followers
are human, with all their human
needs and frailties.
Can you be a great leader without
the softer skills? No, I don’t think
you can.
It’s easy to see that compassion
belongs in the leadership skill
list, but how exactly?
Tibetan scholar Thupten Jinpa
says “Compassion is a mental
state endowed with a sense
of concern for the suffering of
others and aspiration to see that
suffering relieved.”
Your team wants to be
understood. It’s easy to jump
to conclusions and make
judgements without knowing the
full story. For example when an
otherwise well regarded member
of staff begins to under-perform

22 | © LeadershipHQ 2015

for some reason, the assumptions
may be that they are no longer
committed to their work or have
an issue to relating to another
team member or manager.
A compassionate leader who
asks the right questions in the
right way may find out the
person is having personal issues
creating stress or lack of focus,
or some outside pressures on
their time and sleep such as
illness of a family member. The
performance issue in fact has
nothing to do with work, and with
accommodations and support
their usual level of quality and
attention will return, and the
organisational compassion will
be rewarded with increased
loyalty and commitment in the
future.
So in effect, showing compassion
can have a long term benefit to
the organisation. This is exactly
what
researcher
Christina
Boedker found in a recent study.
‘Out of all of the various elements
in a business, the ability of a
leader to be compassionate—

that is, “to understand people’s
motivators, hopes and difficulties
and to create the right support
mechanism to allow people to
be as good as they can be”—
has the greatest correlation with
profitability and productivity,
Boedker observes. “It’s about
valuing people and being
receptive and responsive to
criticism.” ‘
Compassion in leadership isn’t
weak. It’s not about simple
kindness. It’s not about making
exceptions to organisational
requirements;
it’s
about
balancing both sets of needs.
It’s about leading, guiding
and managing your team with
genuine consideration and
kindness.
Bill Cropper, Director of The
Change Forum says, “The reality
is powerful leaders, amongst
their other traits, have the
conviction, confidence and
courage to cultivate connectivity
and compassion.”
Are you brave enough to become
a compassionate leader?