Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way

Leadershipis hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness ingetting the job done? A global pandemic, economicvolatility, natural disasters, civil and political unrest. From New York toBarcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is comingapart. Through it all, our human spirit is being tested. Now more than ever,it’s imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion. But inhard times like these, leaders need to make hard decisions—delivernegative feedback, make difficult choices that disappoint people, and in somecases lay people off. How do you do the hard things that come with theresponsibility of leadership while remaining a good human being and bringingout the best in others? Most people think we have to make a binary choicebetween being a good human being and being a tough, effective leader. But thisis a false dichotomy. Being human and doing what needs to be done are notmutually exclusive. In truth, doing hard things and making difficult decisionsis often the most compassionate thing to do. As founder andCEO of Potential Project, Rasmus Hougaard and his longtime coauthor, JacquelineCarter, show in this powerful, practical book, you must always balance caring foryour people with leadership wisdom and effectiveness. Using data from thousandsof leaders, employees, and companies in nearly a hundred countries, the authorsfind that when leaders bring the right balance of compassion and wisdom to thejob, they foster much higher levels of employee engagement, performance,loyalty, and well-being in their people. With rich examplesfrom Netflix, IKEA, Unilever, and many other global companies, as well aspractical tools and advice for leaders and managers at any level, Compassionate Leadership is your indispensable guide todoing the hard work of leadership in a human way.