What is compassionate leadership?

Compassionate leadership means managers implement empathy and understanding to prioritize employees’ wellbeing. Compassionate leaders understand their employees are humans with past experiences and personal situations that impact their work performance. Understanding those factors is a large part of this leadership type.

Characteristics of compassionate leaders

Understanding compassionate leadership is often easier when looking at specific characteristics that define this style. Here are some examples:

• Curious about others
• Grateful for employees’ contributions
• Supportive of a psychologically safe environment
• Patient
• Empathetic with a high level of emotional intelligence
• Encouraging
• Collaborative and team-focused
• Willing to share the credit for successes

How compassionate leaders support work wellbeing

When you lead with compassion, you also support work wellbeing among your team. Compassionate leaders support the drivers of wellbeing, including:

• Trust: As one of the top three wellbeing drivers, trust is essential between your managers and staff. When you’re compassionate, people trust that you’ll understand their difficulties and support them through challenges. Building trust with employees helps create a positive work environment as a whole.
• Belonging: Compassion helps employees feel like they belong with the organization, creating a sense of acceptance and importance.
• Inclusion and respect: Leading with compassion means creating an inclusive environment based on understanding differences. This helps build respect between team members, which supports employee happiness and collaboration.
• Appreciation: Compassionate leaders understand their employees play an essential role within the team. They often express appreciation for employees, which boosts work wellbeing.
• Support: The understanding and care that comes with compassion may help employees feel supported.

Benefits of leading with compassion

Displaying compassion in all facets of life generates positive reactions from others. Within business leadership, the trait offers distinct advantages.

1. Improved company culture

Company culture influences the overall feelings your team members have about the job. Changing the company culture to a more positive experience can increase happiness among your staff. One way to do that is by acting with compassion. Building an understanding work culture helps employees feel they belong.

2. Higher employee retention

Compassionate leaders often motivate employees to stay with the company. In fact, Indeed’s Wellbeing Report shows that 89% of workers with a high level of wellbeing plan to stay with their organization for the following year.

Treatment from managers often heavily influences workers’ opinions of the company as a whole. By increasing compassion within your leadership team, you could increase your employee retention rate.

3. Better performance

This type of leadership may inspire improved work performance. Compassionate leaders are supportive and encouraging to their team. They ensure employees know they’re accepted and able to make mistakes, which encourages their team to be more innovative and willing to contribute.

4. Increased collaboration

Showing compassion to your team encourages them to be compassionate as well. This can improve all work relationships, which supports a collaborative environment.

Developing compassionate leaders

Whether you want to be more compassionate or you’re training your leadership team to practice compassion, it takes work and intention. The following actionable tips can help you develop this skill.

Listen frequently

Compassion requires listening to others. Being an active listener allows you to better empathize with employees. It gives your team a chance to express themselves and share their thoughts, talents and ideas.

Keep stress under control

High stress levels make it difficult to look at situations with empathy and understanding. When your stress is lower, you stay calm and act with intention. Take steps to manage your stress and increase your compassion as a leader. Leading by example may encourage your employees to focus on stress management, which can reduce burnout and improve productivity.

Understand what interferes with compassion

What keeps you from being a more compassionate leader? There might be underlying factors, such as unrecognized biases, that influence how you interact with your employees. You might take charge of every situation and have difficulty letting go. Identifying these barriers can help you improve as a compassionate leader.

Put empathy into action

Empathy means you understand how others might feel in particular situations. For example, if an employee is dealing with a personal crisis, you could demonstrate empathy by offering flexible work arrangements and expressing your support and understanding during their challenging time. Compassion goes beyond understanding how your workers feel. Once you identify their emotions, think of ways you can support them, such as providing them with additional support or asking other team members to temporarily handle some of their duties.

Practice appreciation

Showing appreciation toward your employees inspires compassion and allows you to focus on the positives. When you recognize employees for their achievements, you focus on what makes them unique.

Learn more about work wellbeing

Being a compassionate leader can lead to better wellbeing at work. By focusing on employee wellbeing, companies can improve hiring, retention and boost productivity.

Discover more of our work wellbeing resources.

Frequently asked questions about compassionate leadership

What are the barriers to compassionate leadership?

Barriers to compassionate leadership often come from internal struggles, such as being judgmental. Instead of trying to understand the situation, you may look for fault or assume you know why a team member acted a certain way. Some leaders might fear that showing too much compassion could be perceived as a weakness or lead to a lack of respect from their team. Others let stress or exterior issues interfere with their compassion as they lead. Being aware of personal barriers helps you develop your compassion as a leader.

Are there disadvantages to being a compassionate leader?

You should be aware of the potential disadvantages when you lead with compassion. For example, leaders who are overly compassionate might struggle with setting and enforcing boundaries, potentially leading to perceived leniency or reduced respect from their team. Compassionate leaders still need to use a high level of discretion when considering any employee’s circumstance.