3 essential self-care habits for compassionate leadership

In defining compassion, a British and American research team led by Clara Strauss notes that an evolutionary perspective on compassion can be traced to Darwin. He concluded that “those communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.”

The team went on to summarize that compassion, stemming from the Latin word compati, meaning “to suffer with,” is now defined as going beyond empathy.

Compassion moves beyond an empathic desire to understand into engagement — doing something to make things better. It combines the desire or motivation to act with acting to alleviate suffering and promote well-being. Compassion also stretches upward and outward to understanding human suffering as a shared, universal experience. It includes the ability, and the strength, to tolerate the discomfort and distress brought on by caring and action.

In some contexts, and in leadership broadly, compassion has been declared a standard for authentically good intentions and actions. Strauss and collaborators cite the American Medical Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics, starting with “A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical services with compassion and respect for human dignity.”

Compassion – better than empathy

Led by psychologists Jane Dutton, Jacoba Lilis, and others, the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan put compassion in leadership on the map twenty years ago. They reported on the benefits of compassion in the workplace: “Employees who experience compassion in times of suffering are more likely to: feel acknowledged … ; have a feeling of elevation … ; recover more quickly … ; feel more satisfied in their jobs and more committed to their organization … ; experience positive emotions while at work; direct caring and supportive behavior towards others.”

A Toronto team led by psychologist Gregory John Depow summarized research showing significant benefits of being compassionate:

• Compassion is associated with better mental health and less worry.
• Compassionate individuals tend to be happier and physically healthier than their peers.
• Compassion training can alter structures of the brain associated with reward, enabling individuals to remain positive even in the face of the distress of others.
• Compassion is associated with reduced occupational burnout, whereas empathy is associated with increased burnout.
• Leaders who show concern and respond to the emotional cues of their followers tend to have more successful followers and to be more successful themselves.

The Toronto team highlights a revealing linguistic analysis of more than two million Facebook posts conducted by psychologist David Yaden and collaborators. This study showed that when a person is facing negative emotions, compassion is associated with other-focused writing and positive health outcomes, whereas empathy is associated with self-focused writing and negative health outcomes.

The Toronto team’s research further highlights the benefits of compassion as opposed to empathy (caring vs. sharing) for leaders: “Leaders who tend to focus on compassion over empathy when responding to negative follower emotions report lower distress, burnout, and intention to quit. In addition, compassion-focused leaders feel more effective as leaders, report fewer negative and more positive emotions, and even report higher life satisfaction. Importantly, we show that followers who perceive their leader as having a compassion focus also have a higher quality relationship with their leader and are themselves more engaged at work and committed to their organization.”

Compassion put to practice

“Oh the humanity,” exclaimed Herbert Morrison in 1937, in his recorded narration of the Hindenburg zeppelin bursting into flames at the end of a transatlantic crossing, with ninety-seven people on board. Years later his audio recording was paired with the video, which can’t help but evoke compassion as you relive what Morrison witnessed.

A good way to practice your in-built, genuine compassion is to pause and attune to the shared humanity of a tragedy that is crushing for many. And, to exercise your agility, feel compassion for the uplift to humanity of a collectively positive experience, such as the Olympics, the end of a war, or the safe landing of a damaged plane. Agile compassion is the ability to resonate with both the tragic loss to some and the positive uplift to others, which can sometimes happen simultaneously.

While Morrison’s sentiment — Oh the humanity — lives on, our compassion can get lost when we are stressed and pressured. It comes back online when we are calm and objective. A good way to switch on your compassion when it is offline is to stabilize your mind and become present to our shared humanity during the unfolding of a human tragedy or a significant human achievement. Forgiveness is also a compassionate act. There is no shortage of opportunities to exercise your compassion neural networks.

As Paul Gilbert, from the UK Center for Compassion Research and Training, notes, true compassion exists when you are generous in your interpretation, defined as a positive default assumption that people are worthy of compassion even when you do not like or respect them. The growth opportunity is to be inclusive and generous in your practice of compassion, to leave at the door your consideration of whether you relate to those suffering and your judgment that they are not worthy of your compassion.

So your first exercise is to make time to pause and sit with the experience of our collective humanity. You can do this as a mindfulness exercise. Take a few deep breaths. Feel the values, journey, hopes, and importance of relationships shared by humanity — first with your family, then outward to your team, organization, society, and beyond.

The second exercise is a more intimate one called “companioning,” adapting Dr. Alan Wolfelt’s tenets of caring for the bereaved. Here are key aspects of companioning:

• Set aside your mental states of analyzing, judging, directing, and imposing order or logic.
• Let go of desire, intention, or responsibility for finding the way out, for taking away the suffering or making the bereaved one’s situation better.
• Hold space for the other who is suffering — a still, safe, respectful space.
• Be present to the suffering.
• Listen with your heart, not your head.
• Be curious and learn.
• Walk alongside, not leading.

The multidimensional strength of compassionate leadership improves the performance and well-being of the workforce, but it can be taken too far. Overuse of compassion can compromise the performance of a leader and their team. High-compassion leaders do not overserve others and neglect self-care, leading to exhaustion. Compassionate leadership requires an intentional focus on balance — mental, emotional, and physical.

Take Leslie, for example, the head of the surgical residency program at a major hospital, who was a highly educated, dedicated, and successful surgeon. As a capable physician and leader in a male-dominated environment, she was promoted to the position of chief of the residency program. She was recognized for her compassion, positive energy, and relational strengths. She excelled in her clinical care, educational, and leadership roles.

But Leslie constantly lived on the edge of burnout. Her dedication to her patients, residents, and family (she had young children), and often having to work overnight shifts, left her little time for exercise or sleep.

Leslie’s overuse of her compassion toward others meant she neglected herself. She started to realize that as a borderline burned-out leader, she was not a good role model. In a state of perpetual exhaustion, she found it almost impossible to maintain a positive demeanor without showing signs of despair and depression. She tried desperately to stay engaged and attentive to the needs of her patients, her students, and her family. But at times, her compassion disappeared, and symptoms of burnout would trigger anger, even rage, at the smallest thing. It was crucial that she learn a key lesson for a compassionate leader: first, take care of yourself.

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The critical step for Leslie was to integrate self-time into her calendar, make time for exercise, and try to get adequate sleep. Ironically, she paid close attention to the work, sleep, and exercise routines of her patients and residents. By doing the same for herself, she brought balance back into her compassionate leadership, including herself in the mix. Her compassion for others could now be balanced with compassion for herself.

Leslie also needed to reflect on when in her career she felt particularly positive, which was, in fact, most of the time over many years. She recognized that she had lost touch, in her overdrive behavior towards others, with many additional practices that had kept her in a positive flow:

1. Journaling. By regularly reflecting in writing on her experiences, both positive and negative, Leslie gained some distance from her tendency to be self-critical and instead acknowledged accomplishments and short- and long-term successes. Seeing herself as a success helped her relax and enjoy life more.
2. Setting realistic self-care goals. By reestablishing goal setting for herself in her personal habits — exercise, yoga, diet, creative outlets — she was able to re-engage with her stronger, more confident and relaxed sense of self — reaping the benefits of self-compassion in action.
3. Prioritizing friendships and family. By prioritizing making quality time with people she loved, Leslie focused more on what worked in her life and where she felt supported, and avoid the loneliness and sense of isolation of overwork.

In summary, by incorporating practices of self-compassion, leaders can maintain the balance of compassion toward others and their own self-care. Their compassion is resourced by their well-being.