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Release Date: January 18, 2022
Leadership is hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness in getting the job done?
A global pandemic, economic volatility, natural disaster, civil and political unrest. From New York to Barcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is coming apart. Through it all, our spirit is being tested. Now more than ever, it's imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion.
Pamela Maynard
CEO
Avanade
Jacqueline Carter
Senior Partner
Potential Project
Julie Devoll
Director
Harvard Business Review
Release Date: January 18, 2022
Leadership is hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness in getting the job done?
A global pandemic, economic volatility, natural disaster, civil and political unrest. From New York to Barcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is coming apart. Through it all, our spirit is being tested. Now more than ever, it's imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion.
We hear people using the term “polycrisis” now, referring to the compounding effects of so much global turmoil – war, recession, climate change, etc.
Regardless of what we name it, it’s hard not to feel unsettled by the world around us. And it’s hard to be a leader at the center of this.
Our recent article, How to Survive Change in a World Full of It, looks at how to take the best path forward—what we call The Managed Mind Path.
As a leader, how do you care for your people but still do the hard things that leadership demands? Many think this is a binary choice, but making tough decisions and being human are not mutually exclusive.
In truth, they are aligned: doing hard things is often the most human thing to do. The ability to combine these two seeming opposites comes down to one thing: Wise Compassion.
Women are demanding more from work, and they’re leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers to get it. This has serious implications for companies.
Women are already significantly underrepresented in leadership. At the same time, women leaders are paramount to employee engagement. Now, companies are struggling to hold onto the relatively few women leaders they have.
What are the repercussions of this reality, and what can we do to change the tide? Explore the articles below to learn more:
Interested in more? Click the button below to see our recent research report, The Human Leader, all about women in leadership.
1. Our brains don’t like change. But if we adopt certain mindsets, we can navigate an uncertain world more effectively. At Avanade, this is done by promoting a growth mindset, prioritizing purpose, and creating an inclusive culture where employees can be their authentic selves. Jacqueline also spoke of the importance of courage, mental agility and presilience.
2. Jacqueline and Pamela dispelled the notion that compassionate leadership is about being soft and easy. Rather, it’s about doing the hard things of leadership in a caring, human way -- having a tough conversation with somebody, letting somebody go, or cancelling a project. Care is not easy, but it’s necessary. Pamela also stressed the importance of spending time in the ‘why’ of hard decisions, a caring act that helps people to accept a tough decision.
3. Women leaders drive stronger job engagement among their teams because they are better able to do hard things in a human way than their male counterparts. At a time when employee engagement is down for the first time in a decade, companies need to examine the unconscious biases that are preventing women from holding more leadership positions. For example, do women get honest and actionable performance feedback in the same way as men?
Watch a full replay of Leadership Reimagined.
