Compassion, Everywhere, All At Once.

Compass Point | 002

Last week the theme seemed to be liminality, this week it appears compassion is our direction. So lets dive in to the concept of compassion as it relates to leaders and leadership development.

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Compassion is a term generally used for interpersonal relationships and social movements. Where you don’t hear it as often is in work environments, particularly in the realm of leadership development (regardless of industry, corporate or military), despite the scientific studies and business icons such as Bill George writing on it’s importance. What you do hear more often in those circles is “empathy.”

What’s the difference? Empathy and emotional intelligence are used to understand yourself, your team, etc., which then informs actions you can take or behavior you can check within yourself that will lead to a more positive environment.

"A Burial at Ornans" by Gustave Courbet (1849–1850). The depiction of a country funeral, in itself a communal event, shows community in mourning, a chance for empathy and compassion.

They inform, but they do not call to action. In fact, it may be hard to take action if you are doing nothing but empathizing, because while yes, you are framing the situation in front of you in the manner in which the other person is interpreting it (i.e. feeling what they are feeling), you are simply sitting with them in that feeling. Leaders have an obligation to do more than just understand how someone is feeling and perceiving a situation.

Compassion is a step further than empathy, or perhaps a step back, a detached perspective. If you remember in Compass Point 001, I explained that liminal growth was like a river, and in order to keep growing you have to get back in the river.

Sympathy is seeing someone stranded on the riverbank with a broken canoe. Empathy is pulling off to sit with them and see how they are doing and how they got there. Compassion is helping them get back on the river and move forward towards their destination.

It is the desire to take action to help another. It can be as simple as stopping to help someone on the side of the road change a tire, or mentoring someone who could use your expertise and experience. It’s power lies in the ability to create massive culture shifts and movements, whether in company culture or on a societal level.

A Value Where It is Least Discussed.

Compassion is an ancient concept for leaders, even if used by different terms. The Methods of the Ssu-Ma, one of the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, has several passages that could be argued speak on compassion, one of which translates as the following:

“Neither contravening the seasons nor working the people to exhaustion is the means by which to love our people. Neither attacking a state in national mourning nor taking advantage of natural disasters is the means by which to love their people. Not mobilizing the army in either winter or summer is the means by which to love both your own people and the enemy’s people.” (Sawyer, 2007, p. 126).

What is worth noting here is the framing of the need to love your people, and to think of them in the planning phase of war. It admits the humanness of both your own people and “the enemy” whether combat or competition, and the need to understand what what state of mind they are in and relate it to who they are as a person. It’s not simply about being reactively compassionate, leadership requires proactive compassion.

You cannot contravene the seasons nor working the people to exhaustion. Let’s think about the wording - you cannot work against the seasons - the implication being that you cannot work against nature and its ebbs and flows.

This translates to a social context. People have seasons of their lives, and some experience changes in mentality during the changes of weather in different seasons - a tendency toward isolation and depression in winter is a common one.

Not having empathy for an individual or group and lacking compassion - pushing them to a point of burnout - does not show you care about the company. The company is made of people, not numbers.

Where Do We Lose Our Compassion?

The relevance of compassion during and and after war continues to this day, despite our tendency now to fight (or work) year round. We fight now just in wars, but in our day to day lives. Many segments of the economy rely now on service delivery over physical labor - and yet our minds still interpret the world at a neurological level the same as our ancestors did. Our civilization however, is no longer set up that way, making compassion hard to foster at times.

I’ve had the distinct pleasure of meeting journalist, author, and filmmaker Sebastian Junger, who in his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, explores how increasingly in modern society we find it hard to connect with one another, particularly in light of the dissonance we face living in relative comfort to our ancestors and tribal societies, yet still facing traumatic events while searching for meaning.

“As societies become more affluent they tend to require more rather than less, time and commitment by the individual, and it’s possible that many people feel that affluence and safety simply aren’t a good trade for freedom” (Junger, 2016, p. 16).

“Modern Society seems to emphasize extrinsic values over intrinsic ones, and as a result, mental health issues refuse to decline with growing wealth.” (Ibid, p. 22)

The post-pandemic work environment has turned into a battlefield of sorts with shutdowns and isolation affecting employee’s perceptions on workers rights and preferences versus corporate control. People are quitting jobs because they have been pushed to a point where the paycheck alone is not enough for their time and commitment. They ache for a return to meaning and authenticity in their life, found in community, in connecting all aspects of their life. To borrow a phrase from

Jorge Medina

, we are seeking to rediscover “work-life integration.”

In organizations with a positive culture compassion is a key part of leadership. It is the reciprocal act of trusting those around you. In company cultures with toxic environments, the distinct lack of compassion pushes workers become similar to the veterans that fight demons after a war.

Isolated, unable to connect, and focusing on themselves.

The way out is seeing the human connection we all share. Compassion is a character trait of leaders that intrinsically drives you to look beyond your needs, beyond those of the company, to the needs of your people. It is an investment in organizational cohesion.

How Do We Cultivate Compassion?

Despite being a trait that is oriented towards others, compassion starts with the self. If you aren’t compassionate to yourself, you live vicariously through your compassion to others. It’s a form of personal reflection that must be developed.

The movie Everything Everywhere All At Once is an excellent representation of the development of compassion within a person. Evelyn Wang, played brilliantly by Michelle Yeoh, is initially dismissive towards her daughter’s needs and wants as she manages a failing business amidst forgotten dreams of how her life could have been. Except they aren’t forgotten - they are buried deep inside Evelyn, and they manifest as resentment, insecurity, and a low frustration threshhold. She is not compassionate towards herself.

Evelyn has very little empathy let alone compassion for members of her family, and the crux of the movie centers on the relationship with her daughter, Joy and how the disconnect between them lead to a multi-verse threatening series of events. Through seeing the different versions of herself and her family, Evelyn slowly begins to understand that in a large part the issues her and her family faces stem from her biases and self-imposed limitations. Perspective is what allows her to begin to empathize with those around her.

But as explained earlier, compassion is a step beyond empathy. The turning point in the movie for Evelyn is when she encounters a version of her daughter that is utterly nihilistic and almost convinces her that nothing really matters - the infamous “everything bagel scene" which ScreenRant correctly analyzes as “a direct metaphor for the overwhelming nature of modern society,” that we discussed earlier with Junger’s work Tribe.

Instead, Evelyn chooses to continue the fight for connection and ultimately stands up for herself, and in doing so stands up for her daughter. Finally able to cast aside her demons, she shows compassion to those around her.

The way to cultivate compassion starts with looking internally to the things that you as an individual, or a leader, do not like about yourself. Look for what which you try to hide or ignore - and then - embrace it. That doesn’t mean you have to accept it and never move on. Quite the opposite. Remember - compassion goes beyond the embrace of empathy and requires action. And if you are navigating the liminal growth river on a raft of broken canoes, you aren’t very capable of showing compassion to others.

The ability to have compassion is essential for leaders. We cannot hope to achieve thriving communities and organizations without it. Beyond causes, and beyond individual moments, you need to see how everything in their social ecosystem is linked in order to practice compassionate leadership.

You are the center of your ecosystem, but it does not revolve around you. So help it thrive, and it will help you thrive.