Gains and losses of compassionate leadership | Sunday Observer

Gains and losses of compassionate leadership

9 October, 2022

It is impossible to interpret compassionate leadership as merely a nice idea, a fascinating concept, or the best leadership model. However, more than ever before, the business sector, except for a handful of segments, in Sri Lanka is going through an extremely horrendous dark patch due to the economic crisis. People have learned to adjust to unforeseen employment obstacles, often at the expense of their work and personal lives.

Therefore, building relationships with coworkers who deal with these challenges can be more effective and easier if you manage by using a compassionate leadership approach. They will remain devoted to your mission because they presume that, as the leader, you care more about their well-being in these troubled times. In addition to the emotional benefits you’ll experience when employees feel appreciated, they work much harder. When compassion enters the workplace, overall performance can be improved.

Focusing on connections via attentive listening, understanding, empathy, and support allows those we lead to feel valued, respected, and cared for, helping them to realise their potential and perform at their highest level. There is strong evidence that compassionate leadership results in happier, more engaged, and productive employees who provide higher-quality care.

Why is compassionate leadership important for the Sri Lankan business community at this point? Through the development of emotional empathy, compassion must establish an emotional separation between the person and the circumstance. By maintaining emotional distance, you can avoid biases like treating your teams better than others because of closeness and being conscious of treating everyone equally.

Leader’s approach

Compassion in these circumstances can create honesty and transparency among coworkers. The leader’s approach can enhance team spirit and prepare them to face challenging situations. It also strengthens personal and professional ties among workers in an organisation.

However, it is important to understand that this style of leadership does not necessarily specify permanent traits of a leader but is merely situational, as the charisma of a leader can be a trap and has disadvantages as well.

Leadership of any type requires deep understanding of what motivates people and how they can be managed on agreed priorities. To be successful in leadership and managing a team under a leader requires pushing agendas, giving tough feedback, and making hard decisions that may upset some of the subordinates.

Therefore, while empathising with the staff, compassionate leadership should not be practised at the expense of wisdom and effectiveness. Strong leadership qualities and a compassionate approach are both needed to carry out hard decisions in a humane way.

To develop compassionate leadership qualities, the leader has to practise self-compassion for himself. Self-compassion is the first step in developing true compassion for others. It is impossible to assist people in finding their equilibrium if the leader is out of balance or stressed.

Leadership styles

In this concept, compassion is primary in the relationship between compassion and leadership. The fact that compassion is the main objective and leadership is merely the means to achieve it, sets compassionate leadership apart from other leadership styles. Leadership is typically the main objective in the various styles of leadership and the lists can be long.

Because traditional leaders prefer to start with the goals and work their way down, the dominance of compassion may be difficult for them to handle. Compassionate leadership requires starting with compassion as the primary goal. Confident, compassionate leadership requires trust that the organisational outcomes that leaders seek will be successfully achieved. Some leaders may find it a scary exercise to start with compassion and then move to organisational goals instead of their usual styles. These leaders, quite justifiably, may think that the objectives will have to be sacrificed if they turn into compassionate leaders. However, there are many research results that indicate that compassionate leaders are as successful as leaders of other styles in terms of customer satisfaction, employee engagement, overall productivity, and financial returns.

Let us now analyse the advantages and benefits of this strong leadership style. First and foremost, co-workers and subordinates will begin to trust the leader more when he or she becomes compassionate towards them. Obviously, any person will undeniably appreciate a leader who understands him or her and acts empathetically. They will feel good following such a leader with complete loyalty.

Influencing the team

This trust established through compassion works in two ways. First, the leader may have to let go of some of the controls that were exerted on the team. Second, compassion involves letting subordinates grow naturally. Simply by being compassionate, a leader can influence a team, perhaps more than other leadership styles.

Practising compassionate leadership is one sure way of promoting team spirit. When a leader offers kindness to his followers, they also, in turn, learn to show empathetic interest in others. This can enhance shared values, both official and personal, and thus encourage sharing work and helping each other.

When the staff believe in the leader, they automatically tend to believe in the company’s vision. Most often, members of a trusting and motivated team will try their best to succeed in common goals rather than fail their leader, whom they adore.

Despite many benefits, compassion in a leader also has some drawbacks when functioning in management tasks. A leadership style that presents itself as compassionate but lacks strong ethics or promotes fear of confrontation might have a few actual drawbacks to a mature, wisdom-paired, compassionate leadership style. Considering human nature, there is a fair chance that the team members may take the leader’s kindness as a weakness and that he is not a traditional strong leader. They may lose trust in the leader, presuming that he will not be strong enough to protect co-workers in a problematic situation.

On the other hand, the staff members may attempt to obtain an undue advantage from the leader if he becomes too friendly and giving. The chance of them coming out with their grievances or even personal issues can be damaging to the overall function of the organisation. The biggest threat is that when the leader starts behaving compassionately, reversing the approach without completely losing face, even in a difficult situation, can be extremely difficult.

The behavioural patterns of human beings are complex and difficult to fathom. Hence, compassionate leadership at times may lead to enabling bad behaviour of some team members. The unwarranted conduct or mannerisms of an individual in a work environment can not only lead to a breakdown in organisational discipline but also disrupt the overall functioning.

It is essentially important to understand that compassionate leadership is all about providing people with what they need, not always what they desire. The distinction between demonstrating sympathy and disregarding inappropriate behaviour is subtle but essential.

The leader may occasionally need to share some negative news or offer constructive feedback and not always say what the team members want to hear. This is the antithesis of compassion because it merely encourages further bad or unacceptable behaviour.

Being compassionate means taking the longer-term view and doing what is best for everyone. However, the leader must possess ample knowledge and experience to balance positives and negatives consciously to offer the best leadership beneficial to both the organisation and the employees. Then only can people truly learn, grow, and become more attuned to the goals of the organisation.

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