January 16, 2025

Self-Compassion

By Ken Giglio, Principal of Mindful Leadership

Why focus on leading with compassion now? Because the degree of suffering in the world is reaching a crescendo. At the individual level we have crises of addiction, mental health, and loneliness. Employee engagement is at an 11-year low.

Communities and countries are breaking apart because of toxic divisions, and the global refugee population, almost half children, has doubled in the past 10 years. Entire towns are washed away, and neighborhoods are burned to ash from natural disasters, with many lives lost (May Los Angeles find relief and recover soon). And, the planet continues to lose forests and glaciers while creatures of all kinds are disappearing into extinction.

At the center of this seemingly bleak landscape is the promise of compassionate leadership, a way of leading that emphasizes connection, ease, and kindness. My aim with this brief post and others to follow is to share how compassion shows up in my coaching work through the three lenses of mindful reflection—Self, Others, and Systems. Mindful Leadership is about looking inward, so our starting place is self-compassion.

Compassion is defined as the feelings of individuals and groups that arise when faced with the suffering of others coupled with the desire to help and relieve that suffering. Compassion is distinguished from empathy (which is the recognition and feeling of another’s pain) by the desire to be involved in somehow addressing and trying to resolve the suffering.

Compassion comes from the Latin – to suffer together. “The concept of compassion and its link to suffering has deep philosophical and religious roots.” To be compassionate means being interconnected with others in times of suffering; the pain of others resonates with our own experiences of pain.

Compassion is not a wish for things to get better; it is deliberate effort to ease suffering by supporting those who are overwhelmed, hurting, and disconnected.

Research on compassion has explored evolutionary links such as the need for humans to cooperate and protect the weak. There are also a growing number of studies from neuroscientists looking at our innate capacity for compassion and how we become more compassionate through deliberate training and practice. Practicing self-compassion, studies have shown, builds inner strength, by “offering stronger protection against social comparison, public self-consciousness, and self-rumination.”

Leading with Compassion through Connection, Ease, and Kindness

Often, the suffering that needs compassion is within us. I recently coached a senior executive who was new to an organization. He had replaced an unpopular department head who was disconnected from their people. In our first meeting, the coaching client talked about feeling overwhelmed and lost within the organization’s matrixed environment.

I noticed how visibly stressed he was, and what struck me most was the executive’s insistence he needed to “double down” and work harder to fit in and learn the new company’s business and culture. He admitted to “feeling off his game” and to “beating himself up” for not assimilating fast enough into his new company. (At that point he had worked for the organization for fewer than 60 days.)

My client and I discussed and strategized in the early sessions how to focus the coaching time on supporting him in feeling less overwhelmed and more balanced and confident. He was aware enough to know his self-confidence was shaky, and we agreed building his inner strength was the first step on his path to success in his new job.

I shared resources from a researcher and author in the field of self-compassion, Kristin Neff. She has studied three elements of self-compassion: 1. Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgement; 2. Common Humanity vs. Isolation; and 3. Mindfulness vs. Over-Identification. These three self-compassion practices became the touchstones for many of our coaching conversations during the next few months.

Our coaching work with Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgment was a game-changer for the executive. I was not surprised about the extent of the change as it can be extremely difficult for leaders with high expectations of their own performance to be kind and at ease with themselves. Our work here was shifting from “beating myself up” to “being easier on myself” when he experienced a setback or felt overwhelmed in his new role.

I asked my client who in his life was the most non-judgmental, caring, and kind to him. He told me about his grandfather, who had died recently, and how he experienced complete acceptance from him and what felt like unconditional love. We agreed he would make it a practice during times when he was struggling with self-judgment to treat himself as his grandfather had treated him: with acceptance, warmth, and kindness.

Another aspect of my client’s suffering was feeling alone in his difficulties adjusting to the new company culture. He would castigate himself “for missing the mark” and “not getting it.” I pointed out everyone has foibles and failures, even his CEO and his coach. It’s how we learn from these misses and setbacks that matters most.

I also reassured him most executives have had similar experiences in their careers, and it is normal to feel isolated at times. When he began to acknowledge the common humanity innate in these issues, he felt more at ease and connected to his new colleagues. The key practice for my client was to remember he is not alone when feeling overwhelmed and to reach out for connection and support.

Mindfulness became the foundational practice for my client in developing his self-compassion and building his inner strength and confidence. Instead of over-identifying with his negative thoughts, he worked on being more aware of the voice of his inner critic. He noticed when his inner chatter and self-judgment spiked and learned to see it for what it is—mostly lies and misinformation about himself generated by his own mind.

Mindfulness practice gave him the skill and capacity to be less attached to his negative thinking by creating some distance between his observer self and his inner critic. He did this by practicing being in his whole body and not just his head. By being aware of his breath and body he stayed more mindful and present in the moment versus being caught up in his head.

During the course of our six-month coaching engagement my coaching client became a more compassionate leader and more comfortable with himself. His inner focus on self-compassion, it turned out, positively shifted his thinking and feeling about himself. It also positively shifted how he experienced his identity as a new leader in a new company. In short, his self-kindness and ease with himself transferred to being more connected with others.

Compassion is not a wish for things to get better; it is deliberate effort to ease suffering by supporting those who are overwhelmed, hurting, and disconnected. Being compassion with ourselves builds inner strength and prepares us to be compassionate with others and the world.