COMPASSION
AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPASSION
Leaders who have a clear sense of their own identity place a high value on their professional relationships with others and, in particular, with those whose goals they share. They are generous to others and are never too busy to help colleagues with their challenges. Effective leaders are aware of the motives and feelings of other people. They know what to do to fit in to different social situations and how to put others at ease. They exercise a sense of duty and social responsibility for the good of the business and are humble about their achievements, preferring to let others take the credit for success.
RELATIONSHIPS
1. Invest time and energy in building working relationships with others. Or put another way: relationships are at the heart of effective leadership.
WHY ARE RELATIONSHIPS SO IMPORTANT?
It is important that you appreciate just how central the building of relationships is to effective leadership and understand its positive impact on trust, understanding, mutual respect and support. These things in turn are vital for your own psychological well-being, physical health and high performance – as well as those you lead.
Capable leaders know that having a small number of significant relationships contributes to improved leadership performance. Those key relationships can be found within your organisation and beyond. Indeed, leaders recognise that we never deliver success alone, and that ‘supporters’ are vital to success. There are always others involved in bringing about our victories, which by extension make them part of a shared triumph.
Pressure does strange things to relationships. In the face of high demands, the temptation is to retreat to your office and hunker down, determined to resolve a crisis alone and demonstrate independence of thought. However, this is precisely the time when you should be reaching out to others. The best leaders are aware of this tendency to isolate themselves when under stress. It’s at this point they reach out to their support networks.
We don’t want you to think that such relationships are developed purely for the benefit of the leader. No! Develop relationships for mutual benefit. Make time for meeting people with the objective of discussing how you can help each other to do better at work, and share knowledge and check understanding of what the business or team is trying to achieve. Investing time in these conversations in a considered and systematic way saves a great deal of time and emotional energy, especially when the going gets really tough.
So, what can you do to develop strong relationships with others? You can believe, think, say, do and reflect.
BELIEVE
The best leaders we have worked with hold two core beliefs about the importance of building deep, mutually beneficial working relationships:
- The leader is there for the benefit of each of their team members, not the other way around.
- Deep, positive relationships can be an end in themselves. Strong leaders don’t look primarily for what they can get out of such connections. They invest time in others because they know the more you put in, the more you can get out.
THINK
Thought patterns mirror your beliefs. Successful leaders tend to think often about how they are impacting business relationships that they have or want to have. Leaders are aware that a call to someone they have not contacted for a while is time well invested. When in conversation they will be thinking about how they are presenting themselves, what the impacts could be on the relationship and the business, and they adjust their approaches accordingly.
SAY
One way to ensure that meaningful relationships are built on trust is for leaders to use ‘I’ in conversations less and ‘you’ and ‘we’ more. Such a linguistic switch changes where the focus falls in a conversation – away from the leader towards the other person. It develops a sense of being genuinely valued by the leader. A word of caution: this often proves to be a simple but not easy change to make.
DO
Professional service firm guru David Maister has offered leaders some great advice for developing high trust relationships really quickly through focusing on four important elements, summarised below.
- Be credible: consider the words you use as a leader, the experience and skills you bring and the ways in which people experience you. For example, ‘Report back to me at the end of every day with your progress’ indicates low trust, whereas ‘I look forward to seeing it when it is done. Any questions or obstacles along the way that need my help, don’t hesitate to ask’ indicates high trust.
- Be reliable: ensure that your intentions are always followed through with action. The certainty of your behaviour provides a sanctuary for people to do great work.
- Be open: encourage people to share confidential information by listening and demonstrating empathy in your response.
- Be ‘other-oriented’, not self-focused: the more your people, co-workers, direct reports and partners sense you are genuinely interested in helping them to explore how good they can be, the more trust builds.
Do these four things consistently and you will develop effective relationships built upon high levels of trust. The following exercise will also help.
REFLECT
- Which colleagues would I turn to in challenging times? Make a list.
- How do I rate the strength of each relationship out of 10, with 10 being high?
- For each person, ask:
- Why have I given that rating to each person?
- Which of these relationships needs more work?
- What sort of investment does each relationship need?
- How will I build trust and mutual respect with each person? Hint: remember the four behaviours above.
- How will I sustain the relationship over time?
GENEROSITY
2. I am kind and generous to others and find time to help people with their challenges. Or put another way: it’s now your job to help others succeed.
We need leaders to be credible. They need to know what they are talking about and to have a personal track record of success. Becoming a high-performing leader requires that you step beyond this expectation and make it a priority to show compassions through supporting the development and performance of others. Their success, after all, is your success.
Helping others succeed requires placing yourself in their service, a concept first brought to the attention of the business world by Robert Greenleaf in his exceptional work on Servant Leadership. Greenleaf says:
A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong.
To do this, leaders make themselves available and make time for others. They focus on building confidence in others, rather than undermining it, and on developing expertise in others, rather than demonstrating their own expertise.
This requires a genuinely generous mindset. Faking generosity in order to achieve some other more self-serving end will not work. People will see through it.
Sounds a bit too good to be true? A bit soft and fluffy? Still not convinced? Let’s throw some academic evidence at it then.
In Give and Take, Adam Grant, Professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that one quality that determines how successful a person becomes is how well they share their time, resources and knowledge. A person’s reputation for unselfishness wins them admiration and loyalty, even though they do not seek it. This enables them to create stable relationships that ultimately permit them to deliver significant results.
So, what can you do to cultivate a generous attitude? You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself…
BELIEVE
If you hold any doubts about the importance of generosity, try reflecting on beliefs you hold in relation to helping others.
GLENN
Glenn used to believe that you had to make your own way in life. He saw life as a competition: you survived and thrived through your own efforts. Not a great mindset from which to demonstrate generosity to others. His beliefs originated from a range of influences: parents, teachers, lecturers and sports coaches.
Through questioning his own beliefs, Glenn came to recognise how the generosity of others had helped him to succeed. He now spends much of his working and private life helping others.
THINK
A great way to develop your generous spirit when working with other people is to ask constantly how you can add value to them. Rather than spending your time in your own head thinking about what you can get out of a conversation or a relationship, consider how you might make the other person’s life a little easier, a bit fuller or more rewarding. Set out to be helpful from the get-go.
SAY
‘How can I help you with that?’ Simple! It’s no more complicated than just seeking to help. Well, actually it’s not quite that simple.
We have words of warning: don’t overuse this phrase, especially resist employing it when you could just look around and suggest what you could do to help. Leaders who take the time to think about how they can help are a blessing. The following exercise will help you to be one of these leaders.
DO
Here are five steps you can take to become more generous.
- Write the names of the three most generous people you know.
- Identify three ways in which each person is generous.
- Note any ideas your examples provide about how you could be more generous towards those who look to you for leadership.
- List the potential benefits to you and your team of you being more generous.
- If you are not going to be generous and make time to develop others, what are you spending your time doing? Don’t like the answer? Then change.
ASK YOURSELF
- Which three people I know are facing significant challenges, either at work or in their personal life, at the moment?
- What specifically is challenging about the situation each of these people face?
- How can I help make each of their situations a little (or a lot) better? Refer to your notes from the exercise above to help. You’ll need to be sensitive to the sort of person that they are and what you know of how they might prefer you to offer help (remember Glenn’s story about not being easy to help).
- What steps do I need to take first with each person so that I can help them master the challenges that they face?
- How am I going to ensure I commit to these first steps? What timelines are practical?
PUT OTHERS AT EASE
3. I fit in well to different social situations and put others at ease. Or put another way: wow! How do they make it look so effortless?
Are you the kind of leader who people back away from when you walk into a room or one towards whom people gravitate? Do you put people on edge because they are worried about what you might say to them or do people flourish in your company and express themselves fully, knowing it is safe to do so?
We know a number of leaders who run the risk of isolating themselves from others. In doing so, they reduce the reach of their influence to no further than those who are, for whatever reasons, willing to respect the title ‘leader’ – even if they cannot respect the person.
Such leaders pride themselves on their scariness. Guess what? People go out of their way to avoid them and keep their company only when they have to. Often, such leaders are blissfully unaware this is happening. People are too afraid to tell them about the impact they are having and think that the leader probably would receive the feedback as positive in any case. Worse, direct reports are required to spend time and energy figuring out the best way to work with these people, second-guess their mood, pick their moment, not ask the difficult questions or dare to present an alternative view.
Do you know leaders like this?
The price you pay for failing to put people at ease in your company is that people will:
- fulfil the basic requirements of their job description and no more (if you are lucky)
- ensure that you never hear the full story and will withhold truths about failures
- never come close to trusting you – the foundation of team performance
- relegate your requests and pay scant attention to your direction and advice
- gossip about you, some of which may be true and quite a lot that won’t be.
So, what can you change in order to be one of those leaders that people look at and think ‘How do they make it look so effortless?’ You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself.
BELIEVE
If you hold any of these six self-limiting beliefs, you need to change your internal dialogue as these beliefs do not help you to show up as a leader:
- I’m an introvert and this stuff doesn’t come easily to me.
- I’m not a people person.
- I don’t have presence like others do.
- I can’t change who I am.
- Others are reaching out, so why should I?
- I have built a reputation for being tough and it has served me well to this point.
Changing your internal dialogue and hence your self-limiting beliefs may not be easy but it is necessary for you to be effective. Doing so requires thinking, saying and doing things differently.
THINK
First, acknowledge that things won’t change if you consider being at ease with others is either not for you or not sufficiently important. If you do want to transform, then start by accepting its importance and committing to change. One of the simplest changes you can make to your thinking is to get out of your own head. Focus on thinking about others and not over-focusing on the thoughts and feelings you are having. Preventing such over-analysis is a great place to start.
SAY
In our work as leadership coaches, we regularly witness that the leaders who are most confident around others, though not reluctant to speak about themselves, prefer to spend time learning about, understanding and appreciating what is important to others. They remove their egos by focusing conversation on those around them. You too can focus attention and conversation on those around you. It is a very liberating approach to ‘getting out of your own head’.
DO
Here are five simple steps you can do right now to start the process of being more confident around others:
- Put down the phone, switch off email and get out from behind your desk. Speak to people about what they are working on. Offer help and support.
- Be there for people. Practise the art of purposeful wandering. It may feel uncomfortable initially and people may be unsettled by it. But make it a habit and notice the impact on you and others.
- Find some people outside your direct team. Explore what is happening in their part of the business. Invest a chunk of time with them and get into the detail.
- Have lunch in the canteen – you will, no doubt, freak out a few people in the beginning but, if you are open, genuine and consistent, eventually people will sit next to you, rather than exit for the local sandwich bar.
- At events, get around the room, shake some hands and look people in the eye (but not for too long).
ASK YOURSELF
- What are the reasons that stop me from being at ease around others?
- What’s really going on here?
- To what extent do I believe I can change the way I operate?
- What small step will I commit to do today to start the process?
- Reflecting on this first step, ask what went well, what were the responses of others and of myself and what will I do next?
DUTY
4. I exercise a sense of duty and social responsibility for the common good of the business. Or put another way: doing the right thing is always the right thing to do.
Accomplished leaders think and act beyond their own self-interest. They work for the good of the team or the business and feel a strong sense of duty. They want to work for the progress of society and have strong orientation to help others succeed. They prioritise wider business success above their personal interests.
This may seem obvious, but in our experience it is far from common practice. We have witnessed many meetings where leaders, particularly at the top of organisations, struggle to suspend their own interests. More often, we notice leaders being inflexible, defending the interests of their own function, country, region or business unit.
A clear sense of purpose helps develop a sense of duty. The ‘connectedness’ to something greater than oneself fuels motivation. Connectedness reflects the sense of unity with others and helps develop relationships based on mutual trust, support and understanding. Such connectedness provides a direction for you to exercise your sense of duty.
Leaders of character understand that satisfaction and motivation depend not merely on having goals, but on having the right goals. They need to see that their work has meaning and that they are contributing to the growth of the business and its place in society. They feel a strong sense of connection to what their organisation stands for and are prepared to bring discretionary effort to work every day.
A number of the leaders we know who exemplify this behaviour gain valuable perspective on the meaning of their work, perhaps paradoxically, through the work they do outside their organisation. Many serve on community associations, boards of charities, run sports teams, are magistrates or chair of the school governors. This is not for everyone but what it brings is an opportunity to practise leadership in a non-work environment, whilst making a broader contribution to the community. The leader’s work is enriched as a result and the business benefits in the long run.
So how can you start to think and act outside of your own self-interest? You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself.
BELIEVE
This is really powerful: what is your purpose? What do you believe you are on Earth to accomplish? Having a clear and fully formed belief about your purpose is honestly like rocket fuel. It guides how you work, how and what you do, what you don’t do and simplifies making decisions about how to contribute to the greater good. Spend time working out your purpose and witness the impacts on your drive and commitment. Incredible!
THINK
A clear sense of duty relies on clarity of purpose. Once you have established the latter, the former is guided within the context of the purpose you are striving to achieve. You can check your thinking and decision making against this touchstone. Any judgement calls, whilst still possible to get wrong, are at least based on a sense of what is right for you, what you deem to be right for others and for your wider organisation.
SAY
Once you have crafted your purpose, it is important to hear how it sounds. Get feedback from friends on whether the way you have constructed your purpose resonates as a fair reflection of how they see you. Does it fit? Continue to shape it.
Practise saying it when you are asked about it. Also, you can try volunteering more at work. Is there a project no one else wants but you recognise as important? Speak up and volunteer to lead it.
DO
Here are three ways to bring a sense of purpose to your leadership role.
- The next time you have a decision to make, consider the broader impact and implications of the options you have available:
- What is the challenge or issue?
- What choices do you have?
- What are the potential consequences, the pluses and the minuses of each of these choices?
- Given your sense of purpose, which of these choices appears most attractive to you?
Look beyond your own needs and take time to consider the wider impact of your leadership. Consider drawing others into the decision-making process. Counter-intuitively, the clearer your purpose, the quicker decisions get made. So, bringing others into the process won’t slow it down and a better decision should result.
- Widen your influence and your service. Seek out opportunities to volunteer your services in the community. Become a mentor to someone at work who typically might not get such an opportunity. Done well, everyone wins in a mentoring relationship.
- Check out your leadership style. Commit to leading for the good of others who have granted you, formally and informally, the title of leader. Regularly check in with your team members to see how you are doing and what you could be doing even better.
ASK YOURSELF
- What is my purpose? To help with the process, consider:
- What do you like most about work?
- What does it mean to you?
- Why is it important?
- When are you most fulfilled at work?
- What has been the most enjoyable moment in your work? Why?
- When are you at your best? What is going on for you?
- What do you never want to give up?
- What are you in this role to do? Why is this important to you?
- As a business leader how can I further help my team, peers, boss and customers?
- What are my values? How do these relate to my purpose? In what new ways could both be better served?
- What are my goals for the coming year? How do they connect to those of the business?
- What it would be like to be a model corporate citizen in my organisation? How can I hold myself to that account?
HELPING OTHERS
5. I focus on helping others to make their very best contribution at work. Or put another way: it’s not about you.
Leaders of character know that it is care for the work and the people in the business that makes the difference between success and failure. People want to follow a leader who cares about all the people involved in the effort, not just the targets that need to be met. Real leadership strength is measured by what leaders enable their followers to achieve. Selfless leaders get their egos out of the way in order to focus on the mission and, most importantly, those who deliver it.
Writing in Sacred Hoops (find a copy and read it cover to cover), Phil Jackson, former basketball coach to the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers, winner of 11 NBA titles, talks about his personal crusade against selfishness – where players were more concerned with personal performance and brand enhancement, rather than the team’s success.
In the early weeks at Chicago, Jackson was credited with getting the best out of the world’s greatest player (in our opinion), Michael Jordan. Following yet another lost match, albeit one where Jordan had been top scorer and star performer, Jackson told Jordan: ‘The sign of a great player is not how much he scores, but how much he lifts his teammates’ performance.’ The rest, as they say, is history.
Sport is littered with examples of people sacrificing themselves to the team ethic. The goal of every All Black rugby player is to contribute to the team’s legacy by doing his part to keep the team progressing every single day. No one is too big or too famous to do the little things required each and every day to get better.
Whether in sport or business it would appear that Robert Greenleaf’s views on servant leadership going back to the 1970s still ring true:
The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?
Easy to say, more difficult to do.
So how can you become more selfless in pursuit of a common cause? You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself.
BELIEVE
The real challenge with selflessness is that we have an in-built survival mechanism to put ourselves first. Whilst that makes sense, it doesn’t play out very well in organisational life. Believing that practising selflessness is worth doing is the place to start. Believing that it is possible to put others first, without losing a sense of yourself and your own dreams, is a paradox that is well worth being able to balance.
THINK
If selflessness is not natural, then you need to think more consciously about what you do and how you do it. You need to:
- think before you act
- think before you speak
- think after you’ve acted and spoken.
All this thinking will bring a level of awareness that will help you to check in with what you are doing and ensure it is aligned to a more selfless way of being.
By the way, when you first start practising this, it’s exhausting but it is well worth the effort.
SAY
As you bring greater awareness to how you are being, you will notice changes to your patterns of speech. There will be more ‘you’ and ‘we’ in your conversations and fewer (although not totally absent) ‘I’ and ‘me’. Start with others. Ask questions of others and explore what they are doing, how they are feeling and find out how you might help.
DO
Here are seven simple ways you can start to lay the foundations of selfless leadership right now:
- Stop telling and start asking. Show genuine interest and concern for others through asking great questions.
- Help ‘sweep the sheds’. Take your turn to do the dirty work on behalf of the team from time to time.
- Let others take on the leadership of certain projects. By reversing roles, leaders not only facilitate employees’ development, but they model the act of taking a different perspective, something that is so critical to working effectively in diverse teams.
- Make small personal sacrifices occasionally, such as missing a family event or going into the office rather than working from home, to support someone else’s project.
- Aim to leave people feeling better and stronger as result of time spent with you by asking how they’re doing and showing real interest.
- Make time to coach others in your team.
- Listen. Listen until it hurts. Play back what you heard.
ASK YOURSELF
- What would it take for me to be more oriented towards others?
- How will I ensure that I am truly listening when others speak?
- How can I ensure I balance my own presence, whilst ensuring others get the limelight?
- Who can I role-model that seems to do this really well?
- Where can I start to ‘go the extra mile’ for others that I have neglected to do so up to this point?