Compassionate leadership Helping your team through times of change

Compassionate leadership

Helping your team through times of change

by Erin Saunders, Leica Geosystems

Photo by johan van den berg from FreeImages Compassionate leadership is about creating a culture where you inspire your employees and help them to grow through personal connection.

The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically

changed the way we work and interact with each other in a swift and immediate way. Regardless of how you feel about the virus or its effects, there is no doubt that it has impacted each of us in ways we could not have predicted. People have reacted differently to the crisis, both on a personal and professional level.

As we work towards business recovery, we’re going to need to evaluate how we support our teams as leaders. Now is the time to focus on compassionate leadership to guide our employees and our businesses into recovery.

Compassionate leadership is about creating a culture where you inspire your employees and help them to grow through personal connection. In the literal sense, compassion means to “suffer with,” which requires listening and empathy.

Recent research has shown that compassionate leadership fosters increased loyalty and engagement in normal business environments. (Chowdhury, 2020) However, in a crisis it becomes a critical skill.

How can you develop compassionate leadership?

1. First, it’s about self-awareness.

How are you feeling about the current state of your personal and professional life? Self-awareness is a critical piece of empathy. Being able to label, describe, and process your own feelings is a key part of understanding and empathizing with how others may be feeling. (Newman, 2018) How we are feeling not only help us understand others, but it also impacts how we interact with them. Understanding how you feel will help you be on the lookout for when you are letting those feelings influence how you communicate.

2. Next, it’s about connecting with people on a personal and

professional level. When you check in with people, check in with them personally first. Ask them how they are feeling. Listen, and then try to understand why they might be feeling that way. It’s important to be non-judgmental when you listen. Non-judgmental listening is about really trying to understand the other person’s feelings while putting our own temporarily to the side. By authentically connecting with your team, you will help them grow on a personal level, which ultimately helps them grow on a professional level.

3. Show your own vulnerability.

More traditional examples of leaders implied they needed to maintain an image of competence and authority. But true

connection requires authenticity, and part of being authentic is demonstrating emotional vulnerability. The Harvard Business Review gives these examples: "include calling an employee or colleague whose child is not well, reaching out to someone who has just had a loss in their family, asking someone for help, taking responsibility for something that went wrong at work, or sitting by the bedside of a colleague or employee with a terminal illness.” (Seppälä, 2014) By doing these things, you create a sense of trust and connection that allows you and your team to feel as if you are leading together.

4. Demonstrate calm optimism. When times are uncertain, people look to their leaders to help them gain clarity and understand the vision for what’s next. They want someone with a positive vision who is confident about how you will weather challenges together as a team. Start by understanding the evolving reality that’s impacting your business. Shift your thinking from seeing challenges as roadblocks, but instead problems to be solved and learned from. Leading in a crisis requires creativity. When you feel stressed, hit pause. These are opportunities to reflect on different ways you can solve problems. Hitting pause also stops the body’s natural fight or flight reaction to stress. (McKinsey, 2020) It allows you to stop in the moment, and then begin to think about creative and innovative ways you can respond to the crisis. 5. Overcommunicate, using what you’ve learned from listening and evaluating your team and the business. This is where you put the people and the vision together. Acknowledge how people on your team are feeling. Share stories of success and creativity. Paint the vision of calm optimism and help people understand what the immediate future looks like and what you need from them. Then begin the process again. As things change, people want to know that they are heard, that there is a plan, and what their role in that plan should be. Compassionate leadership has always had a place in business. It not only feels good for both you as a leader and your team, but it’s also good for your business and your bottom line. Now, more than ever, we need to hone our compassionate leadership skills to meet our people where they are and to help the business succeed as a team.

About the author

Erin Saunders is Regional Human Resources Business Partner with Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon.

P: 770.326.9517 E: erin.saunders@leica-geosystems.com

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