Why compassionate leadership may be the answer to the Great Resignation

The Great Resignation has challenged employers to rethink the way they recruit and hire talent. But it’s also a time for every manager to reconsider: What kind of leader am I?

Now more than ever, employees are looking for organizations and bosses that lead with humanity, and recognize the separation of work and life has been permanently blurred by the pandemic. A 2021 survey by EY consulting found that 90% of U.S. workers say that empathetic leadership improves job satisfaction, while 79% say it decreases turnover. 

“It’s a challenge for the modern leader to hold onto both of those tensions, of work and life,” says Evan Harrel, co-founder and COO of the Center for Compassionate Leadership. “But the ones that can do it are going to attract the most engaged employees, the most creative employees, and ultimately the most loyal and grateful employees.”

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Four years ago, Harrel and Laura Berland launched the Center for Compassionate Leadership to help organizations embrace compassion and humanity. The nonprofit has created a research- and science-based curriculum, which it uses to conduct eight-week programs that train leaders across business organizations and industries on how to lead with compassion. The duo started work on the Center long before COVID redefined the work world, but in the wake of the pandemic, compassionate leadership has never been more valuable. 

“COVID pulled the curtain back on us, and smashed together our work life and personal life,” says Berland, founder and executive director of the Center. “Work used to be place-based, but now there is no separation. And organizations are being forced to deal with that, because employees want to see an alignment of values and an appreciation for our common humanity.” 

Berland and Harrel spoke with EBN about why compassion is so vital to the success of a business, and how leaders can learn to be a little bit kinder to both their workers and themselves. 

For leaders who don’t really know where to start, how can we increase our compassion in the workplace? 
Harrel: The first thing leaders need to do is ask a lot of questions. Curiosity is a critical element for compassionate leadership. Oftentimes when we’re working with leaders, we’ve said, “Have you asked your people what they need?” Often the answer is “no.” But approach your own team the way you approach issues out in the marketplace. You do market research, you do research on the competition. Give the same level of attention to detail with your teams and what they need and what they want. It doesn’t mean they’re going to get everything they want, but it helps you create the structure to be as responsive as you possibly can be.

Why do you think so many leaders are hesitant to ask their employees for that kind of feedback? Is it from a place of fear, or of losing authority, or just unintentional oversight? 
Harrel: Yes, yes and yes. There’s research that shows that emotional intelligence is one of the strongest predictors of individuals’ rise through an organization, but there’s also research that shows that once leaders reach the highest levels of an organization, emotional intelligence atrophies. Why? Well, they no longer have to depend on understanding what other people think and feel because they’re the decider now. And there’s a bit of hubris, the fear of looking weak. But the irony of that is, showing vulnerability is one of the strongest ways that leaders can connect themselves to their teams. Leaders need to be proactive about telling their teams to bring bad news to them. 

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Berland: And that has to emerge in the context of a culture that people feel comfortable in, where they feel safe, connected and like they belong. If my boss came to me for feedback but I’m working in a fairly tenuous environment and I don’t think that person is on board with creating good work policies, am I going to be afraid to share an opinion? People will be vulnerable in return to leaders’ vulnerability. That creates a woven fabric of safety, connection and belonging. 

To your earlier point about work/life boundaries being blurred, we’re living through a very challenging time in terms of world events. How can leaders help their teams feel supported when it comes to stressors outside of work? 
Harrel: Leaders need to face those challenges head on, and name them. Recognize that people are having a hard time and try to respond in ways that are thoughtful. That’s opposed to just denying it or saying, well, here’s your mental health day, go and deal with this on your own. 

Berland: The focus and spotlight on mental health is so powerful and necessary, but we’re just opening a crack in the window. Companies, organizations and individuals will all have to deal with the underlying sense of grief and trauma that has been overwhelming us as a society and a world for the last few years. And that’s typically not part of the conversation yet. So we have to meet people where they are and give them space and give them tools. 

How do you advise leaders to create that space? 
Berland: At the beginning of the way we work with leaders, we do the inner work of self-compassion and dealing with inner turbulence and self-doubt and self-punishment, and the internal pressures that we have all been conditioned with. You have to be whole with yourself before you can try to move a team along. What happens when your air mask drops in an airplane? You have to find that inner strength and fortitude. 

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Harrel: Our typical sequence of leadership development starts with awareness of others, and then it’s self-compassion. Self-compassion is the overarching theme. 

How does that trickle down to compassion and understanding in the day-to-day of work? 
Harrel: We often use a very practical example that most people respond to, and that’s how teams structure the flow of information. You can share information in written memos. You can share it in one-on-one meetings. You can share it around the conference table in a group meeting. But people like to share information in different ways, and different people like to receive information in different ways. So if you’ve just been sharing information in a morning meeting because that’s how it’s always been done, you might want to think about scheduling some one-on-one lunches in addition. 

Where does remote and hybrid work fit into all of this? For leaders, how does that further complicate or bring easy to team communications? 
Harrel: This is why you have to ask questions — remote and hybrid work are affecting different people in different ways. The extroverts are dying not being in the office connecting with other folks. The folks who love being behind their computer, they’re loving working at home. 

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Leaders are trying to run an organization with a specific set of goals and objectives, and we used to have a whole set of rules that worked perfectly, but now, those rules are out the window and there’s no single path forward. Compassionate leadership allows you to be aware of what’s really going on with your team, aware of needs within the organization, and how to come together to move forward. 

Berland: It’s this ridiculously beautiful opportunity to recast the way we organize the way we work and form a community. Leaders can tap into the spark of each individual, and the unique contribution that each can make. Creating that sense of safety, connection and belonging allows people to feel like they’re heard, and like they’re part of the solution. And that’s truly collaborative work.