Today’s business leaders need to demonstrate compassion more than ever before. Compassion means genuinely caring about others and having positive intentions and real concerns for each member of your team. A compassionate leader fosters strong connections among people and nurtures others to demonstrate compassion and empathy.
Leaders who lack compassion believe in the power of placing more pressure on their employees to make them more productive. However, intense pressure from the leadership opens doors for disengagement. Compassion builds bonds that display trust, confidence, and optimism in a workplace. The bonds also demonstrate shared commitment and lower turnover rates, and here are ways to help you remain compassionate as you run your business. Here are ways to incorporate compassion into your business activities.
Encourage Collaboration
Compassion encourages experienced staff to offer knowledge and assistance to any other colleagues who may be struggling in areas of their strength. As a manager, you understand that there are employees who work independently and collaboratively with little supervision. Then there are others who need extra help with almost every task and project.
While the latter group might have great potential, they seemingly don’t show any initiative making it more frustrating. But as a leader, it doesn’t feel right to fire them to deal with them with compassion to ensure that they get what they need to accomplish what was initially set for them.
Compassion-Centered Communication
The key to being compassionate at the workplace is sound communication. Compassion-centered communication provides a safe environment where you can exchange your thoughts and ideas with your team while being empathetic to the team’s anxiety and any form of resistance. This type of communication includes active listening and understanding verbal and non-verbal cues.
Luckily, modern communications technology enables team members, supervisors, or clients to communicate efficiently and improve compassion in a business landscape. VoIP, for instance, can be a valuable resource for your small business. But is VoIP worth it for a small business? VoIP can be used to conduct conference calls, internet fax, call forwarding, call transfer, call routing, among others. Since its introduction in the 90s, the voice-over-internet protocol has progressed to the best and most versatile internet calling solution in the market. Click here to learn more about VoIP and how you can integrate it into your communication.
Encourage Constructive Criticism
When employees openly engage with one another and share feedback through constructive criticism, it benefits team spirit and business growth. Constructive criticism encourages employees to freely and respectfully discuss their feelings, thoughts, and opinions with the HR department and minimize future problems.
Constructive criticism is direct, honest, and clear. It gives you specific examples and actionable suggestions that lead to positive change. Constructive criticism highlights ways employees in question can make positive improvements while fostering professional development, strong working relationships, and overall business growth.
Recognize Possible Burnout
Showing compassion in the workplace can bring out real joy and happiness. Through compassion, team leaders can recognize potential team burnout, for instance, after a stressful work week, and come up with opportunities to prevent it.
Anyone can feel burnout on the job and when you engage your team with compassion, you are keen to understand their needs, desires, and points of view. You will also feel genuine concern for their well-being. You too can benefit from being compassionate to others. According to research, expressing empathy has physiological effects that calm us down and strengthen our long-term sustainability. You first need to commit to caring about yourself before you can extend empathy to others. This way, you can create resonant relationships that are good for you and your team.
Why You Need Workplace Compassion
An organization may have super talented professionals who are well experienced in their fields. However, if they do not regard each other with respect, talk empathetically, and internalize each other’s pain, they cannot succeed in their fields.
Being compassionate at work guarantees a healthy communication flow full of love and warmth. Your company will indeed succeed if all employees and managers will exhibit compassion. Employees who receive empathy, help, and understanding from their colleagues are likely to stay longer in an organization and will experience a better work-life balance. A compassionate workplace creates a safe space for active communication where employees can vent out their professional concerns and relieve stress. A compassionate workplace increases productivity and encourages interpersonal bonds and strong professional relationships.
