Early in the calendar year leaders traditionally turn to implementing new annual plans. We coordinate conversations about strategy, goals, metrics, and outcomes. These organizational patterns outline ways to measure ourselves, our teams, and our work with high bars and expectations. Competition and risk assessment remind us how we will win.
Our strong goal orientation and discomfort with change keeps us focused on the plans we’ve made even after the world shifts. We have a tendency to grip tightly to older visions of success and cling to “the plan”, often dragging others along with us.
Despite our best efforts to create a comfortable certainty, the world continues to ache and churn. Where we thought we were headed continues to get significantly delayed and disrupted. If we are paying attention, all of us are abruptly brought to different realities than the ones we had envisioned. Leadership, and the act of being human, ask so much of us.
As we face the many challenges and cries we hear for help, it’s tempting to turn away. The pace of change feels dizzying. However, in these rumblings, we believe the gaps revealed are spaces in which we can show up differently for ourselves and those we lead.
Yes – plans, strategy, and vision are important aspects of the work we take on as leaders. What’s different in adopting a compassionate approach, though, is that compassionate leaders understand the wisdom that the plans you set today are going to come to fruition in a profoundly different world that has evolved twelve months from now. We are spinning just that fast.
Author and therapist Carl R. Rogers offers a perplexing perspective when he states, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” This perspective applies both to us individually and the organizational environments in which we find ourselves.
As a leader, this paradox holds an invitation. Where and what do you first have to accept as you lead your corner of the world forward? What if this year, you were able to hold your plans with grace and flexibility, rather than grit or ‘muscling through’? It’s in letting go of resistance and accepting where we are in each moment that we can begin to understand where to move next.
Perhaps success could be reframed as returning, over and over again, to the present situation just as it is, reassessing, and then choosing to act. Here are a few questions to help you get grounded in a different way of being:
How can you redefine success as you respond to ever-present change?
What would it look like to approach your strategy with a practiced flexibility?
How can you see yourself as a co-creator in the reality you want to see in the world?
What is yours to do right now?
Who might you ask for help?
Compassionate leadership is a practice, not a set of rules or a destination. When you commit to live and lead with more compassion, there is no list of how-tos guaranteeing a certain result. Instead, this commitment holds space for tenderness, deeper awareness, and an invitation to continually return to the present moment.
One way to commit to a practice of compassionate leadership is to incorporate ‘everyday practices’ into your life. These are simple practices that you can easily work into your day on a regular basis to support your development as a compassionate leader. The power and simplicity of everyday practices is that you don’t need to “add” them to your schedule. They make themselves available in the regular flow of a day. These everyday practices help strengthen your compassionate leadership muscles without having to set aside additional time to train.
The compassion training gym is the entire world. When you set an intention to be aware of times when you can use a given everyday practice throughout your day, the opportunities will arise organically. After engaging with an everyday practice for a number of days in a row, the practice becomes a part of you, and you will find compassionate responses flowing from you more naturally and easefully.
You are invited to explore the everyday practice of curiosity.
Curiosity is a foundational practice for compassionate leaders. It undergirds one’s capacity for non-judgmental awareness. Curiosity helps you keep from jumping to a premature conclusion and keep an open mind and open heart to really understand what's going on. Curiosity is critical for communication. Compassionate leaders ask good questions and good questions come from a place of curiosity. Compassionate leaders also listen deeply. To be able to do that, you need to be curious. You need to sincerely want to know what people are sharing with you. Approach every situation with curiosity, and you will avoid the pitfalls of judgment, learn more than you can possibly imagine, and deepen your connection to everyone you meet. All three of these benefits of curiosity will strengthen your compassionate leadership.
To help get the curiosity juices flowing, here are a few questions to consider with curiosity as you embrace the reality that everything is always changing:
What change do I want to see in the world? What is within my control in service of that desired change?
What change do I need to accept without resistance?
Where is it easy for me to move with the flow of change? Where am I resistant, even though things will continue to change?
When I stumble, how will I reconnect and calibrate to grow?
You can play with these reflections individually, and also ask those you lead to do the same. Have a conversation about where you can add more curiosity into your organizational spaces in the service of your collective goals. And remember, you can begin again as many times as you need to.
How are you approaching planning with compassion for your organization this year? What resonates with you? You’re invited to add to the discussion in the comments below.
For more about the power of curiosity in your leadership journey, you can read this blog as well. And for more inspiration, we encourage you to explore these short wisdom bits on our website.