Leading with empathy.
The task of undertaking empathetic leadership involves enveloping your followers into a human template. This involves the task of understanding the untangible that impacts human performance.
Emotions are a key part of what makes one human. A state of positive or negative emotion has been proven scientifically, and empirically, to effect performance. Empathy involves understanding the struggles a particular human is involved in. Recognition is the first step towards a positive state of emotion in a negatively impacted human being.
Physical well-being is a key factor involved in loss of performance in humans. How that impacts one performance is well published, but beyond that, the impact being recognised as one who is physically impaired has an emotional outfall. This manifests as poor performance on a separate scale.
Compassionate leadership means recognising the struggles and troubles of your team. It also means dealing with them effectively to gain trust.
This is what leads to gains in performance, well-being both mental and physical and an environment conducive to best performance at work.
In the healthcare industry, the impact of Compassionate Leadership is profound. This profession carries a huge mental and emotional burden due to its very nature. Dealing with life and death situations on a regular basis during your 9-5 work hours is not amenable to a happy life. It makes the concept of death and disease mundane to the point of denial. The cycle continues until one day the professional is faced with a case of exceptional duress and the mental walls start crumbling.
I am talking about this impact. It takes lives. Suicide rates are highest in the healthcare industry amongst all professions. Numerous reports have documented burnout in healthcare professionals to the point of depression, withdrawal from society and breakdown of relationships.
Due to the very reasons above, compassionate leadership is most impactful in the healthcare industry. It is also the least common in hospitals.
A burden of politeness is thrusted upon these professionals who must face impatient patients and relatives, angry and disgruntled at a health service which is under funded and under staffed. The human outlet for anger and upset is suppressed as a qualifier to work in the industry.