I have found that self-compassion is important for leaders to have. Now that I understand what it means to have compassion for myself, I have noticed that I’m authentically embracing what it means to lead better. I’m more accepting of any team I work with, meaning that I don’t expect them to be people they aren’t. I accept their strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, to be a good leader you need to know who you are – where your own strengths and weaknesses lie and have a solid understanding of what you believe you should be doing with your life. Compassion Cultivation Training offers a structure for returning you to yourself and discovering who you are in your heart. Each day, I try to remember that I’m human, I won’t be perfect every day, and rather than hope for things to work out as I want, I accept them as they are and see them as “we’ll see.” In such a belief system, mistakes are okay. That’s why self-compassion is a daily practice through meditation.

I had a conversation with a colleague recently about empathy and compassion training. A colleague of his didn’t see the point of it and neither did he. To them, empathy and compassion are something that you should learn as a life skill in childhood and then apply it throughout your life, even at work. But do we do that? Or a better question, do work environments support or reward that way of being?

Business is about efficiency, not “feeling the feels,” showing respect, or politeness to others. Business schools teach students to consider the bottom line in all decisions. They teach students to make decisions based on data and facts, resulting in more money through increased revenue or savings. You cannot convince a successful businessperson to pursue an idea based on hunches, dreams, or feelings, even if you are building a product that helps people live better lives. You solve problems and create systems based on the bottom line. Sadly, such interests interfere with being human. And that’s the challenge of business. Business, due to its nature and focus on the end justifying the means makes it a cold, inhuman place. Teaching compassion in society and especially in businesses not only helps us return to humanity but it helps us realize that the bottom line is not the only consideration for a business. We must remember that we are people first and businesses make money from relationships with customers and employees with revenue being only one output of that. Loyalty, engagement, brand, and accountability are the others. 

Only recently have businesses, specifically marketing, noticed how appealing to a customer’s humanity and connecting with them emotionally will improve the bottom line. It’s a fairly new idea to see customers as people. I often debate with marketers and business leaders about consumers making decisions, either for themselves or in a business, as people first, driven by their emotions and motivations to live a better life. In work situations, the decisions get more complex, where marketers and salespeople may need to consider how such a decision impacts that person’s career and extends to their personal lives. When it comes to personal decisions, marketers and salespeople need to consider how many people in a family will be impacted by this decision. Is this person deciding for them too? When you see the complete person and all their relationships as your customer, it is easier to feel compassion for them, better understand the complexities in their lives, and understand the potential areas for suffering.

When I consider the role compassion can have at work, I quickly see how it can support humanity, provide service to others, help employees embrace service leadership, and provide structures to have more engaging conversations to solve customer problems. It’s easier to identify and resolve customer problems when you can emotionally connect with a customer’s suffering, try to understand it, and feel a desire to help them.

And this mindset alone supports psychological safety. Psychological safety describes a culture where employees and customers can highlight issues and challenges and resolve them without worrying about retaliation or ridicule. All feedback is considered to be good feedback to help solve problems. 

What’s misleading to many is that psychological safety isn’t about being nice. “What it’s about is candor,” according to Edmondson. “What it’s about is being direct, taking risks, being willing to say, ‘I screwed that up.’ Being willing to ask for help when you’re in over your head.” (Social Chemistry, Marissa King)

As a result, psychological safety can build authenticity, or truth, which builds trust, and later builds community. Together, these connections and feelings destroy challenging interpersonal communication approaches like martyrdom and gaslighting, two powerful mental weapons corporations use to maintain their power over employees and customers.

To establish this psychological safety, you need to equalize power in relationship dynamics. That happens only when group members know that there is no punishment or consequence, like judgment, for expressing truth or sharing ideas. If anything, there is a benefit to being completely honest – either you are rewarded, or your problems are solved.

Self-compassion and compassion equalize this power. Listening and curiosity are giving actions – you are giving your attention to someone to understand their experiences – and they are the first step in practicing compassion. It’s why meditation is key to self-compassion – you need to take time to listen to yourself, and you can only do that through silencing your mind and allowing your inner self to speak to you.

So how do you apply these ideas to businesses? That is the next section.

Previous: Accountability brings happiness. | Next: Employees can try to be compassionate to customers, but if the work processes don’t support it, they won’t be. 

Part 1: How it started | Part 2: What drove me to self-compassion

Part 3: Acceptance of your humanity is a first step towards compassion

Part 4: Curiosity to discover who you are

Part 5: Acceptance of who you are | Part 6: Next - set boundaries |

Part 7: Accountability brings happiness, which brings honesty and trust

Part 8: How does compassion apply to work? | Part 9: Employees can try to be compassionate to customers, but if the work processes don’t support it, they won’t be. 

Part 10: The employees won’t be compassionate to each other if the culture and work environment won’t support it.

Part 11: Management accepts that the company can have flaws. They acknowledge strengths and weaknesses.

Part 12: What I learned from compassion training