Compassionate Leadership.

What is it?

Compassionate leadership is a new way of looking at how we interact with our team and with our workforce.  It is best summed up by the phrase “Engage with empathy, communicate with humility and respond with compassion!”.  It is important that we empathise with others and that we are careful about the way we communicate with people and how we subsequently treat them.  To be compassionate a leader must a) understand, b) empathise and c) have a desire to assist.

At its heart “Compassionate Leadership” is about treating people with respect and has its foundation in the fundamental belief that people do what they think is best given their knowledge and the information available to them at the time.  However, to do this the leader must be aware of their own moods, drivers, attitudes and limiting beliefs.

By using the three key question rule you can easily get to the underlying drivers (or fears) that, if taken at face value, could derail your communication and raise tension between people.  The questions encourage people to look into themselves and identify not only why they acted as they did but also to reflect on the impact their demands might have on other people.  It gives people the option of exploring a more effective method of communicating to deliver a more positive response.

Why is it important?

Compassionate Leadership will help increase engagement across the team, give them ownership of both the problem and creation of the solution.  It will also increase motivation in the team as they own the answer they are more likely to deliver on their promises.

Compassionate Leadership is the answer to most, if not all, of the attitudinal and behavioural problems you will encounter in your work place!

What do I need to do?

At the heart of Compassionate Leadership is the desire to look at the underlying attitude and beliefs you have about yourself, your leadership style and how you communicate with yourself and your team.   You need to explore how you currently perceive leadership and the attitudes, values and beliefs you attach to your concept of leadership – i.e. how do you think good leaders act and behave?.

You should then explore how you apply these attitudes and beliefs to manage those around you, what their strengths, weaknesses, impact, scope and limitations are.

Following from this you can move to become a more effective and hence more compassionate leader; thereby maximising your positive impact and your teams’ performance.  You do this by letting go of your ineffective, stereotypical and limiting beliefs and creating a more effective, enabling and empowering lasting belief system and a better approach to applying these to your team.

Where does it help?

The workshop uses analogy, metaphor and shared experiences coupled with a series of challenging and stimulating exercises undertaken in a safe, relaxed environment.  Attendees are encouraged to create their personal Action Planning and Goal Setting during the workshop in order to drive commitment, engagement and resulting in embedding real, lasting change.

The areas enhanced by adopting a compassionate leadership approach are those of :-

Management v. Leadership:

By having clearly defined, articulated and consistent Roles and responsibilities we will generate Synergy.

By addressing, and enhancing our Attitudes towards Leadership and cementing our Identity as a Leader we can then Improve Relationships with our team, ensure that everyone is in the right place at the right time doing the right job thus promoting positive Flow and reducing work related stress.

Teams:

By setting appropriate Expectations for ourselves as leaders and other team members with a clear Focus on Goals we can then Build on individual team members Strengths.

Also by using interpersonal/behaviour Styles that work we can coach and develop team members and increase their Self Awareness and their awareness of Other peoples drivers, motives and behaviours.  This will result in a reduction in conflict situations through building more effective relationships.

Business Communication:

By promoting an open, safe and engaging Culture, that is guided by personal Alignment and feeling in Flow we can demonstrate effective Emotional Management to help enhances positive outcomes and significantly improve our personal, professional and teams Effectiveness

By being more effective at our communications we will establish a common sense of Purpose which, in turn, drives success in achieving Goals

Compassionate leadership is not a “soft” or “easy” option – it is actually the harder road to travel and needs a strong, confident leader to be able to follow this path.

However, ultimately, by adopting a more compassionate approach you will reduce stress in your workplace, increase team spirit, motivation and performance and reduce both conflict and the number of people leaving your company.

To book either a 2 day Compassionate Leadership or an Alignment session contact :-

[email protected] or call 07980 743 613 or

[email protected] or call 0118 971 2024

Or go to :-  http://www.eventbrite.co.uk to check future course dates.