 "Compassionate Leadership")
Compassionate Leadership: How to do hard things in a human way. Rasmus Hougaard & Jacqueline Carter (2022). HBR Press.
The authors of The Mind of the Leader (2018) present an illuminating exploration of leadership by examining the tension between creating a more human world of work and the demand to make hard decisions – delivering negative feedback, make difficult choices that disappoint people, and in some cases lay people off. “How do you do the hard things that come with the responsibility of leadership while remaining a good human being and bringing out the best in others?” It’s too easy to see the “hard decisions” of leadership and “compassion” as mutually exclusive. “In truth” the authors note, “doing hard things and making difficult decisions is often the most compassionate thing to do.”
The approach they describe is defined as wise compassion: “Wisdom is to see reality clearly and act appropriately … Compassion is the intention to be of benefit to others. Compassion is not about pleasing others and giving them what they want. Rather, compassion can be tough and direct, such as addressing another person’s behavior if it is out of line. But it is done with the intention that helping them change will ultimately lead to better outcomes for everyone” (p2). This book outlines the principles and practices of compassionate leadership, providing actionable insights for executives seeking to cultivate a more humane, effective, and sustainable leadership style.
Hougaard and Carter’s work at the Potential Project (https://www.potentialproject.com/) led them to interview 350 executives (primarily CEOs and CHROs) as well as conducting quantitative research from 15,000 leaders and 150,000 employees from more than 5,000 companies in nearly 100 countries, including two separate long-term studies in collaboration with Harvard Business Review and four leading business schools. “The findings establish a strong case for wise compassionate leadership” (p3). Leading with compassion, they found, benefits the leader in terms of career advancement and reduced stress (including better sleep). “Wisdom and compassion have a significant impact on all aspects of the work experience and productivity of employees” (p4).
“The key message of our research: for optimal leadership, wisdom and compassion must be combined. Wisdom without compassion can be ruthless, and compassion without wisdom can be naïve” (p4).
The book begins by addressing the evolving nature of leadership in the modern world. With the ever-increasing complexity of business environments and the growing emphasis on the well-being of employees, the authors argue that a new leadership paradigm is necessary. They introduce the concept of compassionate leadership as an antidote to the conventional authoritative models, but without abrogating the responsibility of taking tough decisions and delivering necessary feedback.
Defining compassionate leadership
Hougaard and Carter distinguish compassion from empathy. While empathy involves understanding and sharing another person's feelings, compassionate leadership takes it a step further. It involves not just feeling for others, but actively working to alleviate their suffering and fostering a sense of belonging and growth. Compassionate leaders seek to create an environment where individuals can thrive both personally and professionally.
While empathy allows leaders to connect with their team members on an emotional level, compassion propels them to take action. Compassionate leaders not only understand their employees' emotions but also take steps to address their concerns, provide support, and create a more inclusive and caring work environment. This differentiation is crucial for leaders to transform their empathy into tangible positive outcomes.
“Our research shows that there are four skill sets needed for a leader to operate with wise compassion when doing hard things” (p8). These four skills are presented as a virtuous cycle illustrated as “the wise compassion flywheel”: Caring Presence (Be here now); Caring Courage (Courage over comfort); Caring Candor (Direct is faster); and Caring Transparency (Clarity is kindness) (p9).
The book’s chapters (below) offer a good overview of the Compassionate Leadership approach:
Unlearn Management, Relearn Being Human
“If you want to be a good leader, there are a few things you need to understand: First, nobody wants to be managed. Second, who you are is more important than how smart you are. At last, leadership is all about developing and enabling meaningful and trusting human relationships” (p16).
Great Power Comes with Great Responsibility
“Every time you are faced with a difficult decision you can shape the nature and tone of your leadership by asking: Will this have a positive impact on my colleague’s genuine happiness and well-being? Will this action inspire others in a positive way? Will I be proud of this in ten years?” (p37). “Doing hard things requires foresight. Foresight helps us to lean into the unknown future and make decisions in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity. This requires reflection. Only with reflection can we have the ability to see clearly and understand that if we don’t make the necessary hard calls now, the future will get more difficult” (p41). They offer three questions for reflection on whether our chosen actions are wise and compassionate: “Is it selfish or selfless? Is it aligned with my company’s valuers? Is it benefitting the greater good in the long term?” (p41).
Connect with Empathy, Lead with Compassion
This is a central part of the book. “As leaders, we must connect with others through empathy, but we have to lead with compassion … it is a critical distinction needed to secure your own well-being and the success of the people and the organisation you lead” (p52). “Yes, empathy is good. But it has limitations … the words empathy and compassion, as well as sympathy, are sometimes used as if they mean the same thing. To be clear: they all represent positive, altruistic traits, but they don't refer to the exact same experience ... consider the two distinct qualities of compassion: understanding what another is feeling and the willingness to act to alleviate suffering for another” (p52-53). These two “scales” of understanding and willingness to act create a framework that goes from pity (I feel sorry for you) through sympathy (I feel for you) through empathy (I feel with you) to compassion (I am here to help) (p54). If we fail to connect empathy with compassion then empathy can get in the way of us doing what we need to do. The former CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman put it this way: “If I led with empathy, I would never be able to make a decision. Why? Because with empathy I mirror the emotions of others, which makes it impossible to consider the greater good and make the right decisions. You need to have empathy on a human level but run a business with compassion” (p54-55).
Empathy + Action = Compassion. Empathy is an emotion, and compassion is an intention (p55). Advocating for compassion, the authors draw on their research to highlight measurable benefits of the compassionate leadership approach. “Leaders who develop and exhibit compassion over empathy in their leadership are less likely to experience personal distress or be overwhelmed by negative emotions … compassion leads to a sense of empowerment and a predominantly positive state of mind – even in the face of other people’s challenges” (p56-57). “Leaders oriented toward compassion tend to focus on the greater good rather than the well-being of one individual. This means that compassionate leaders generally try to unite people and groups. Empathy, on the other hand, can make us prone to divisiveness” (p57). Further, empathy “can also lead to a lack of diversity and inclusion” (p58) (because of our tendency to empathise more easily with people who are similar to themselves and part of their group); “empathy may cloud our moral judgment. It encourages bias and makes us less effective at making wise decisions” (p59).
“As you rise in rank and your responsibility widens, you are forced to take a bigger perspective and hopefully be more oriented towards compassion” (p64). “The following are strategies for using empathy as a spark for leading with more compassion: Take a mental and emotional step away … (Only with perspective will you be able to help) … Ask what they need (their response will inform you better on what you can do to support) … Establish emotional resonance (Forget about your managerial status and be a fellow human being) … Coach the person to find their own solution (leadership is not about solving problems for people) … Remember the power of nonaction (often people don’t need your solutions).
Fit Your Oxygen Mask First
To be fit for the hard tasks of leading, we have to take care of ourselves first. If we discover halfway through a challenging journey we’re not fit enough for it we’ll damage ourselves and others. Interestingly, the authors found that “the more senior the leaders, the more they reported better self-care in terms of getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and other healthy habits”. But it seems this isn’t just because they have more autonomy and support – “The data indicated that as people rose in rank, their reported self-care increased” (p70-71). Another aspect of self-care they address is the “inner critic”. “Although inner criticism can be a wise teacher, it can also be a terribly unkind and unhelpful friend … Pay attention to how you talk to yourself … ‘Would I talk to a friend this way?’ … ‘Is this helpful to me right now?’” (p.77-78).
I liked this provocation: You’re on a plane and the captain announces there’s a mechanical failure and that we’re losing cabin pressure so “Please put on your oxygen mask”. Would you say, “Okay, but first I just need to finish this email?”
Busyness Kills Your Heart
The chapter title is taken from some Chinese wisdom in the word for “busyness” which consists of two characters: one meaning “killing” and the other meaning “heart” (p86). “A constant experience of busyness means our bodies are never at rest” (p87). “We choose to stay busy because it makes us feel productive and it is addictive” (p89). Activity, of course, is not productivity. A HBR article “Beware the busy manager” concluded that “very few managers use their time as effectively as they could. They think they’re attending to pressing matters, but they’re really just spinning their wheels” (p91). Another study of 350,000 people found they spent on average 41 percent of their time on low-level priorities. “The consequence of this addiction is that we’re constantly chasing quick wins and easy fixes at the expense of long-term goals” (p91). Focus is the answer. But focus hurts, because it requires us to choose (and to focus – which is harder than being busy with lots of distractions). They recommend putting people first – leadership is about people and if leaders are too busy to focus on supporting and developing others, they have a real problem (p95-96). We can do this by prioritising people in our calendar, delegation for development opportunities, and creating a “to-be” list rather than a to-do list as our focus (p96).
Be Here Now
This section addresses mindful presence with others (see their earlier work, The Mind of the Leader). For example, “When leaders are distracted by their phones, it undermines supervisory trust, which, in turns, lowers employee engagement … Hard things are impossible if we are not fully there. In fact, if you want to do ‘hard things’ really poorly then be inattentive” (p104-105). Without mindful presence we lose that powerful space between stimulus and response – the space to choose our (wise, compassionate) response.
Courage Over Comfort
“Making hard decisions often means that others will get hurt or disagree with you, resulting in a confrontation. Having the courage to willingly approach confrontations is one of the most important skills of wise compassionate leaders. When this skill is lacking, bigger problems are sure to arise over time. In our interviews, this was a recurring theme … it is easier for us to smile and agree with others than to openly disagree and cause a confrontation. As a result, many companies are hampered by a ‘culture of niceness’ that unintentionally leads people to not raise dissenting points of view … inhibits innovation, inhibits psychological safety, and hurts overall performance” (p122-123).
The authors encourage us to see confrontations as positive and necessary. Confrontations “only become negative when handled in unskillful ways – or when not handled at all. Confrontations, at their core, are merely expressions of two diverse points of view. When we enter confrontations with courage and an open mind, we can learn and grow … Opposing views create new thinking, which leads to progress” (p131).
Direct is Faster
Related to courage over comfort is this principle of “caring candor”. As the CHRO of IKEA said: “’It’s easy to fall for the illusion that we protect people by not being candid with them. When you’re not dealing with the situation in a direct way, you are being unkind … I would hate it if someone didn’t talk candidly with me about what’s really happening’” (p141). The authors offer a neat check on this being misunderstood as being uncaring or hurtful: “To help you reflect on whether how you speak is caring directness or brutal honesty, imagine there is a microphone in the room recording you. Would you be willing to share the recording with the rest of the organization? If you were to modify the recording and be the receiver versus the sender, would you want someone to speak to you like that?” (p142). “Being candid now is a gift because it creates the potential to make our future easier. Issues are like untreated infections; the longer you leave them, the more the infection spreads, and the more painful it becomes” (p145).
Clarity is Kindness
This is the mantra for “caring transparency”. “When people know what they need to know and see you for who you are, things are clear … lack of clarity in a work setting … can create a culture of confusion and distrust … caring transparency leads to greater trust and psychological safety” (p158). Core elements of building and maintaining trust include: connection, which requires presence, attention, openness and curiosity; compassion, which signals to people that we care about them and intend to be of benefit; and credibility, which is about ethical behavior and doing what you say you are going to do (p161). Wise compassion feeds directly into psychological safety, according to Amy Edmondson: Without wise compassion, the culture suffers because no one feels safe to speak up… As a leader, you are therefore cut off from getting the information need to skillfully navigate your business and your team” (p163-164). Strategies for increasing caring transparency include: treating people as adults; spending more time in uncomfortable space to get clarity around hard things (don’t make assumption, ask questions); make time for connection, from check-ins at the start of meetings to structured activities; encourage dissent (“Who would like to share why this is a bad idea?”, asking everyone to share three reasons why an idea might not work); and demonstrating humility (it’s okay to say “I don’t know”) (p165-171).
The Only Way Out is Through
“The rubber truly hits the road for wise compassionate leadership when you have difficult conversations ... the most challenging experience most leaders face” (p176). The authors distinguish between two types of difficult conversations: “terminal conversations (something is ending) and developmental conversations (something needs to change)” (p176). Because terminal conversations are objectively more difficult they refer to them as “hard” and to developmental conversations as “feedback”. They offer some strategies for both “hard” and “feedback” conversations within the wise compassion context. Keys to good “hard” conversations include: be prepared, including planning the day, setting intentions, and scripting the first sentence (the objective being to share the bad news clearly up front) and last sentence (with the objective of keeping the line of contact open); separate the action from the person; give people options /choices to provide some sense of control; prepare for reactions and don’t be triggered into unhelpful reactions yourself. Keys to good “feedback” conversations include: don’t put it off (keep it simple and be less formal); reframe feedback as a gift (share because you care and focus on the development opportunity); focus on the positive (e.g., “how we have done better” is more constructive than “what went wrong”, don’t assume they already know), and avoid the sh!t sandwich (“If the only time we receive positive feedback is when it is delivered before and after we get negative feedback, it loses meaning”); and create a feedback culture (including willingly and purposefully asking others to give you feedback) (p177-192).
Your transformation makes for a more human world of work
“Wise compassionate leadership does not happen unless we put in the effort. Just as musicians and athletes practice their professions, we too, must practice to become good leaders. As you pay attention to how you think, speak, and act, with the mission of developing wise compassion, you can gradually shape your character … the people who pose the biggest challenge often provide us the greatest opportunity for our development and growth … train yourself to avoid saying things like, ‘Why did this happen to me, and especially today when I’m so busy?’ Instead, begin by saying ‘Here’s a great opportunity for growth … Whenever you experience a challenging situation with another person, ask yourself two questions” ‘What can I learn from this?’ And, ‘How can I bring kindness and wisdom to this situation?’” (p196-197).
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