Leading with Compassion & Truth
Calibrating for Maximum Empowerment
Compassion and truth are essential ingredients in personal and team flourishing. Senior leaders, board members, and team leaders who know how to calibrate these two qualities will foster an environment of health and growth. So how can you strengthen the ways you are applying these two essentials with the people you lead?
Compassion offers the sense of being included, encouraged, and valued – not for what you can do, but for who you are. It is about knowing and feeling you belong, that others care about you and want to include you because you are important.
Truth involves the personal responsibilities that come with relationships and teamwork. It provides challenges to both character and competency that will enable individuals and teams to function at their highest level.
The degree to which we engage people with these characteristics can shape how they respond to the work before them. A leader who offers people a lot of compassion but little truth will create a cozy relational environment that stunts the potential of the people or effectiveness of the team. On the other hand, a leader who constantly challenges with truth but offers little compassion will eventually face discouraged people and teams. What we seek is the right combination of compassion and truth that empowers. The chart below illustrates the interplay of compassion and truth, and how that interplay impacts people.
We tend to lead with a bent toward either compassion or truth. Think about the people you lead and ask yourself these questions:
What is your tendency, and why?
How do different situations shape how you calibrate the amount of compassion and truth you offer?
How do the different personalities of the people you direct shape how you interact with compassion and truth?
Below are various leadership scenarios that display how the calibration of compassion and truth can empower people and teams.
Developing a Team
Once a team is selected, all are needed, everyone has a role, and each person is important. If a leader is unable to get personal “buy-in” from the team members, they won’t succeed. Even teams with highly skilled individuals can struggle to perform effectively if they don’t learn to operate as a team. Yet challenges to one’s competency and character are actually essential to performing to one’s optimal level. Without such challenges, teams are unlikely to garner respect for one another, and are sure to underperform. Without compassion from their leader, people will be reluctant to take chances or step up if it seems unsafe. Without honestly addressing areas of growth, teams can devolve into functioning around what is comfortable instead of pressing into areas of development crucial for effectiveness. Both compassion and truth are essential for people to begin to trust one another, effectively work together, encourage one another, and succeed together.
Operating as a Team
Leading up to a big presentation or event, there will need to be more challenging truth to maximize the effort. After a setback or time of personal weakness, truth is essential but compassion is critical. The team and each person within it will require differing amounts of compassion and truth. Some respond well when offered challenging truth candidly and immediately. Others need to have the truth sandwiched with compassionate affirmations. Knowing your people and what they need to be effective is essential to being able to lead them well.
If you would like to personally grow in your ability to lead in these ways, contact us at Mirador Leaders to discuss this further.
