If you want to engage in compassionate leadership, one way to nurture a safe environment is by using language that does not activate a stress response. Use these six phrases to foster the creation of a secure and inclusive environment where all team members feel like they belong.

For our first guest blog post, Jennifer Kammeyer, M.A., offers up this “5-Minute Primer on Compassion in Leadership” filled with lessons learned at the recent Compassion in Leadership Summit hosted by Wisdom 2.0 and LinkedIn.

We founded the Center for Compassionate Leadership to advance a new way to lead in this world. Read about our four-pronged approach here.

In The Mind of the Leader, Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter offer a clear, structured means for leaders to achieve greater individual engagement and create environments that are more responsive to the relational needs of today’s workplace.

For our inaugural blog post, we thought we’d start with a question we are all curious about, Compassionate Leadership: “What is it?” First, let’s start with a shared understanding of compassion. A classic definition of compassion is the desire to alleviate the suffering of others. When we break that down, we believe that effective compassion requires three elements: an awareness of others and their feelings, an empathetic response to their condition, and finally an ability and desire to act. The key is putting compassion into action.