The First Element of Compassion: Noticing
We are living in a time that asks a lot of us.
Across our personal lives, our workplaces, and the wider world, many people are carrying more uncertainty, more pressure, and more fatigue than ever. Even in those places where things appear “fine” on the surface, there is often an unseen undercurrent of strain driven by a worry about what’s next or exhaustion from the constant acceleration of the pace of change.
Compassion begins with the acknowledgement that something hard might be going on. Before we can respond wisely or helpfully, our first step is to notice what is happening.
This article is the first in a four-part series exploring the core elements of compassion: noticing, interpreting generously, empathizing, and acting. We begin with noticing.
Turning Toward Without Getting Pulled Under
When we encounter suffering, we have a choice about what we do next. We can turn away by distracting ourselves, minimizing what we see, or staying busy to avoid discomfort. We can also get pulled in by the distress so fully that we feel overwhelmed, helpless, or flooded.
Neither response serves us well.
Compassion asks for a third way: the willingness to turn toward what’s hard without being consumed by it.
Noticing doesn’t require fixing, analyzing, or even fully understanding. It simply asks us to see clearly and steadily. Some traditions call this equanimity. If that term is too abstract or distant, a more accessible way to think about it is steady presence, or the ability to notice what’s happening with care, without rushing to push it away or take it all on.
Steady presence allows us to say, internally or aloud: Something is happening here. That alone is a meaningful act. When leaders cultivate this capacity, they are less reactive and more grounded. They can acknowledge difficulty without amplifying fear or collapsing into it.
This kind of noticing is empowering rather than passive. It allows leaders to move forward from a centered, grounded place.
Seeing Directly Reduces Anxiety
Ironically, many of us avoid noticing challenges because we’re afraid of what we might find. Have you ever avoided opening an email because you were concerned about what difficulty could be lurking inside? We can worry that naming a problem will make it bigger, or that acknowledging strain will open a door we don’t have the capacity to walk through. Magical thinking lets us pretend that if we don’t look at what is going on, anything difficult will simply fade away.
But avoiding what’s happening rarely brings relief.
Sometimes our fears of what we might find are unfounded. When things are actually okay, looking directly settles things for us. The clarity of what is unfolding reduces the gnawing anxiety we created in our mind. We stop filling in the blanks with worst-case scenarios.
And when something is wrong, early noticing gives us options. You can only name a challenge once you have acknowledged it. Noticing it early allows for small, timely responses instead of urgent, high-stakes interventions later on. For individuals and organizations both, when early signals are ignored, vulnerability increases.
From a leadership perspective, early attention and action are critically important. Many organizational challenges don’t emerge suddenly; they accumulate gradually. Disengagement, burnout, and breakdown are often preceded by subtle signals that go unseen or unspoken. Don’t wait to notice.
The Cost of Silence—and the Role of Psychological Safety
Even when challenges are visible to some, they may not be voiced.
Fear and shame make it difficult for many people to say, “I’m struggling,” or “This isn’t working.” In workplaces, this silence can be compounded by power dynamics, performance pressures, and cultural norms that reward composure over honesty.
People learn quickly what feels safe to name. They are even more sensitive to learning what is not safe to name.
This is where compassionate leadership becomes especially consequential. Leaders set the tone for what can be noticed and spoken aloud. When leaders consistently signal that difficulty is a failure or an inconvenience, people adapt by hiding it. When leaders respond to challenges with curiosity and steadiness, people are more likely to speak up early, when things are still workable. Your team are your eyes and ears in the field. Encouraging them to share all that they are seeing and sensing, both good and bad, will make you a more effective leader.
Creating this kind of environment is easy to name, but harder to enact. It’s built through everyday behaviors: asking open questions, responding without blame, acknowledging uncertainty, and thanking people for raising concerns. When this leads to information that is not what we are hoping for, these everyday behaviors can feel very uncomfortable. Lean into the discomfort. Over time, it gets normalized and will positively shape whether a team learns to surface challenges or suppress them.
Noticing as a Leadership Practice
Noticing suffering, whether it is personal, relational, or systemic, is an ongoing practice that requires attention, self-regulation, and care. It begins with ourselves: noticing our own fatigue or tension, and noticing when we resist getting information that worries us. From there, it extends outward: noticing shifts in energy, patterns of silence, or repeated friction points within your colleagues and teams.
While the result of compassionate leadership is wise action, the first step to reaching that result is the willingness to see clearly.
Next we’ll explore how we interpret what we see, how we stay emotionally connected without burning out, and how we translate compassion into wise action to elevate our leadership.
For now, practice paying attention and see what it feels like at a whole new level. The opportunity is for more easeful, less stressful, and more effective leadership.
To never miss a blog post, sign up for our newsletter.
PS. For those who want to deepen their capacity to learn how to apply compassion leadership in your context, the Compassionate Leadership Certification Training offers a structured path for learning the practices, skills, and shared language that support this work. Through evidence-based frameworks, contemplative practice, and a global community of leaders, participants strengthen their ability to apply compassionate leadership in themselves, their relationships, and the systems they influence.