Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership. I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo. And Lorenzo on this episode, I want to talk about being a compassionate leader. I think that's a great topic to have and we need more of it. We need more compassionate leaders, and we need leaders who are more compassionate. And that's not the same thing, you know, like, there are leaders out there who have none of it, and at the very least you know where you
stand with them and you know what to expect. But there are also leaders out there who I think are They're compassionate in general, but then something happens
where they have a harder time turning it on. And I'm thinking about an example that I had recently where a leader's job was to basically show a person how to do something, and this person was not new to the organization, and so I think the assumption from the leader was that they should already know how to do this, and it was clear in the way that they were teaching them that leader thought that they should have known how to do this already.
And because of that, there was a complete lack of compassion in the in the training and the teaching style. And I thought, you know, we talked about it afterwards, and it was just it was a little out of character for this person, And so I thought, this is this is an interesting topic because you know, I started looking at my own life and how I interact with people and thinking, Okay, do do I sometimes have
an easier or harder time turning on compassion for other people? And when leaders do this for me, does the impact how I feel about them and how I feel about my relationship with them? So I thought it's a good topic because I think it happens a lot. I think, you know, we we're all individual people, and we all have different levels of compassion, and sometimes it's easier for us to turn it on. Sometimes it's hard for us
to turn it on. Yeah, I think too. It's one of those things where when you when you kind of see yourself in others, when when you have a connection with people that that you can have a similar background, a similar you know, personality type, a similar view of the world.
Sure, those are the types of things where it makes makes compassion a little bit easier as far as for most you know people, because like there's there's already a familiarity with who somebody is and kind of maybe what they've been through
or or or how they see things. So I think that it kind of builds into your ability to be more compassionate for someone versus someone where maybe you don't have a great relationship with or a clear understanding of who they are, their background, their experiences in life, and it's hard to be more compassionate because you don't really have a true understanding maybe of the things that they're going through or what they're working on. So I think it's important because even the
best leaders who I think are you know, who show an authentic element of compassion, you know, are going to have those opportunities in those places where it's kind of like working through for the first time a situation or someone that they work with that's very different than somebody they work with with people they've worked
with before. There's a lot there that requires a certain level of not just like what you were saying earlier around compassion like compassion leaders, but leaders who are compassionate, Like there's an element of this that really is around I think self awareness and an understanding of you know, how can you be compassionate regardless of maybe the initial connections you have or familiarities you have with people, and how can you be you know, not just compassion leader, but a leader
that's more compassionate when it comes to the day to day work that we do. What are the things that you're doing that show compassion. What are the things that you're doing that that you may have to think about, look upon and adjust to make sure that you're showing up in a way that you know allows people to do their best work right. So, you know, I've often talked about on the show, and it's very important to me to try
to assume positive intent and and sometimes it's to a fault. So I've I've been in situations where I've assumed positive intent and it has burned me because the person did not have positive intent and that became a problem. But in general, I think it's serves me well to assume positive intent and the times when I get burned for it are outweighed by the number of times where it helps the relationship to start from that standpoint. So as a leader, you can't
just assume positive intent and then move on with your day. If there's a person who needs to be doing something differently, or they need to get better at their job, or they there's something that they're expected to do and they're not doing it well. It's not enough to just assume that they aren't lazy, that they aren't cutting corners, that there's a if they're not doing it, there's a reason they're not doing it, and it's not that they It's
not something you can attribute to something either nefarious or malignant. It's it's something that is you know, if you're assuming positive intent, you're assuming that they're they're at least coming to work wanting to do their best. And if it's not happening, it's not because they going they're they're not saying to themselves, I don't care about this. They they think they are caring about it and they think they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. But if you're in
a leadership role, that doesn't mean they get away with it. It doesn't mean that you can just say, oh, well, you know they're not doing their job well, but they think they're doing their job well. So that's enough, you know, Like, no, as a leader, you
need to fix that problem, whatever it is. And so starting from a standpoint of assuming positive intent, I think is a prerequisite, like you need to start there, because if you assume that they're cutting corners or being lazy, or that they're unethical, or that they don't care, then it will come off in the way that you train and teach people that you don't actually
believe that they are. You know, they're not assuming positive intent. But once you've assumed positive intent and you go into this this these interactions with people from a standpoint of trying to fix the problem, it can be a touchy
situation. And there are ways to do this right when it comes to teaching somebody or training something somebody on something that in actuality, they should already know how to do, and that can be difficult, especially when it comes to you know, if they are one of many people are already doing this well and they're not doing it well. Believe me, their team members and their
coworkers know they're not doing it well. It's not just them. And so how you go about it as a leader is it's really important to do this the right way so that you aren't just you know, solving the problem, but you're doing it in a way that keeps the rest of the team engaged
too. Absolutely, and I think that it's such an important you know, piece of this when it comes to being the leader of leaders One of the things that I not only look for when it comes to assessing talent and making decisions around a leadership team, but also that that I look for constantly is people's ability to show compassion and to understand that that people are multifaceted, that there's a lot of things that will help people either you know, be successful,
to do their best body of work, to be able to show up in a way that is you know, not not only helpful, but but you know, allows you to truly think about, you know, how things not only at work but outside of work can impact them and like can can cause them to show up in a certain way, and like these are these are critical things that are super important to me as I think about motivating and
inspiring people around them. And again there's as much as I've been in leadership for a long times and as much experience as I have, like, there's still things that need to be worked on when it comes to understanding how to be compassionate and how to to do that consistently. Not to over use compassion, because that can also be a thing we can get caught up so much in one side of it that it can be difficult to kind of pull back
from that. And when you're a leader of leaders or you have a lot of people on a team, there's also an element of like how do you how do you balance that across to everyone? How do you make sure that you are compassionate in the moments that call for it, but that you also have the ability in the band with to be compassionate for many people. And so like, there's a lot here that I think I'm always thinking about and
considering. And that's why when you're thinking about building leadership teams and leading leaders, who you have on those teams, how they work together, how they work well, how they help each other and support each other, that to me is also a way of making sure that you have a much larger kind of compassion pool to pull from when it comes from those that may need it
in the moment. And hopefully that makes sense. But like I'm just really thinking of, like how the team dynamics and how you select leaders to be on a team is such an important piece of providing the space for compassion to truly live amongst a team in a business. Right now, it makes perfect sense because I think there are situations where people are miscast in roles right.
Either they're in a leadership role and they shouldn't be, or they're in a role that is non leadership and whatever it is that they're expected to do as part of their job, they're just not good at doing it. And if you are a leader of people or a leader of leaders, to start from this standpoint of thinking, okay, is is there a way where this person
does get to a place where they're able to do this correctly? And starting there, starting with the assumption that okay, there is let's assume there is a way for this person to get there. Great Now, it's my job as the leader to help them get there in any way that I can now. Where the compassion can be, where it can be too much, and where it can derail you is if you lose sight of that initial thing that north star to you needs to be Does this person have the ability to get
there eventually? And am I seeing steps that are putting them along that path to where I can still answer that question to myself as a yes. If the answer is yes, okay, great now, it's time to the next interaction. Let's get them there. But at some point in time, the part of compassion becomes compassion for the rest of the team, which means if a person is miscast in a role or if they're not doing their job correctly, holding them accountable doesn't mean a lack of compassion. It means that you
are having compassion for more than just that one person. There's a broader thing going on here that you have to, you know, make sure that you maintain and how you interact with that person in the accountability also has to be compassionate. It doesn't, you know, signify a lack of compassion just because that you it's turned from hey buddy, let's walk and talk together and tell me about what's going on to now all of a sudden, there's a problem
that needs to be fixed. And these are the expectations, those things, those conversations need to be integrated with each other at all times, not a transition from one to the other, because there it can't ever be a surprise or a shock to a person that all of a sudden it's moved from one
to the other. It always has to be like this. So the first conversation that you have with a person when it comes to getting better and you're trying to have compassion is Hey, these are the expectations of the role. I'm committed to helping you get there. Let's do it together because you need to be able to do this and this and this and these are the expectations,
so let's do it together, right. And if all the conversations start with that kind of reiteration of these are the expectations, then the compassion is on how you get them there and how you train them and how you teach them. But it can't just seem informal from the beginning because then at some point in time, if they're not moving along, you need to turn it on, and that can be more derailing to the interaction into the relationship than
if it was there all along. And then so I think part of that compassion again is really clear expectations on what the expectation is, so that when you are doing the training and the teaching, they understand that there's a goal in mind, and that goal is that expectation of what you need to be able to do to be able to do this job well and maintain the job.
Yeah. I think it's a great point because I think this is where I think some leaders get stuck a little bit when it comes to thinking that kind of compassion in leadership is almost acting like a counselor or someone who's there
to help people unpack and work through things that may be impacting them. And again, a part of a job of a leader is to show compassion and to understand, but it has to be built within the framework of the there's a job here, there's there's an expectation here, there's things that we do at work, and so like you can't fully kind of like spend your time all day long, you know, kind of thinking that you're going to show
compassion through spending time talking about things not related to work, Like like there's definitely those times you're gonna have those conversations and you need to step up in those spaces. But like so much of that it to your point, like the base and the foundation for that really has to be in the framework of the expectations of doing the job and being clear. And people say clarity is
kindness. I think this is a really good example of what you're of that and what you're talking about, Like to be kind is to be clear, like to be able to share and talk to people about the responsibilities that we have in the jobs that we have and the expectations of the jobs and being really clear about that, then we can focus on getting that work done.
And then when there's times that things pop up where you could address them, you can just address them and then kind of get back to what is expected
and what's what's clear about the role that we have to get to. And again, I know it's it's tough because a lot of times you hear about compassion, you hear about these examples and you want to go right to the extremes of you know, something really that's it's kind of really out there that's going on that somebody needs help with, and like, look, that's why you know, you have great relationships with your team, You build trust with
your team, You leverage resources, you leverage benefits that companies have. You do the right thing to make sure people have what they need to work through what they're working through. But there's there's always a part of it which is like that there's a there's a job, and there's expectations that have to be done. And if you don't ever talk about those things, then to your
point, I think you're setting yourself up. You know, to to to really you know, have some some hard times when when you have to start talking about those things and it feels like it's coming out of left field, and it feels like, oh, well, what happened to your compassion? You know, you used to never talk about these expectations, and now we
have to talk about these expectations. Where if you always talked about the expectations and then provide compassion, then it's not such a shock to the system when things have to be you know, be pivoted to talk about the work right. I think that's a great example because oftentimes when when leaders find themselves in difficult situations like this, it's when something extreme comes up, right, something happens and you think, oh my gosh, I really have to develop the
compassion here. But something extreme can rise to the level of maybe this person is one hundred percent not in the right role, or maybe something has happened where the company expectations are that this person needs to be held accountable to something, or or I'm putting my own role and my own job at risk by not holding them accountable. And if you've never had a conversation with them in
the past about accountability and about what their responsibilities are as an employee. It can seem like, oh my gosh, this is the this is the wrong time to hold them accountable. It's like it's like you know the stories you hear online that are you know, sometimes real, but sometimes not. Where it's like, oh, this person was fired because they were late to work because they were taking their mom to the hospital, right, and it's like, oh my gosh, how could you ever do that. It's like,
uh no, that's not how it happened. This person was late to work seven thousand times and this happened to be the final time. Now is it wrong for that to be the final time? I don't know. Every situation is different. It's between you and your company and your people to figure that out. But in general, that doesn't happen to a person. That's not
why they were fired. They there's a pattern, and there's probably a lack of accountability and a lack of compassion in explaining what the expectations are to a person that happened in advance that then led to this happening. And if you, as a leader are going through this the right way, and you are and you are making sure that you know part of being a compassionate leader is making sure your people understand what the expectations are from the very beginning and in
every conversation. Then it's so much easier to make sure that that is part of a broader conversation. When something happens that is larger or more impactful, where you have to kind of where the accountability might be dialed up, then the interaction with between you and the employee won't be any different than it was before. It's just now the consequences are larger, the implications are higher than
what they were before. But what the employee has come to expect out of you when it comes to okay, clarity, kindness, compassion, and accountability altogether, that will be the same. And you will have exercised that muscle often enough in interactions that require, you know, lifting the five pound weight to where now all of a sudden, you're lifting the fifty pound weight.
It doesn't feel quite as heavy, because if you don't do the five pound weight over and over and over again, that fifty pound weight is going to feel very daunting. And oftentimes it's when leaders get derailed during those conversations and it doesn't go off for them either. Absolutely, And with that it brings us to this episode's Women at Hack. But first, if your works for our sponsors, all right, Today's Woman at Hack is about getting out of
the mindset that as a leader, your your role is binary. Either you should be solving problems or staying out of them altogether. If you're a leader of people and your job is to is to get people better and to make people better at things, it doesn't mean that responsibility falls wholly on you. It's on the employee as well, and it could be on other leaders.
And it's a kind of a group effort thing here. So what I see out of a lot of leaders where they get stuck is they think to themselves, I can't solve this problem, so I'm not going to get involved altogether. And you know, change that mindset. You know, if you can do anything, you should do something. It doesn't mean you have to solve the problem. It doesn't mean that you have to make it so the problem goes away, or that the employee is now all of a sudden great at
doing whatever it is at their job. If the idea of being a compassionate leader is taking empathy or sympathy to the next level, So compassion is if you if you have empathy for something or for somebody, and that empathy drives you to feel like there's something that should be done or something that you should do. It's like watching a new story and thinking, oh, that's that's terrible, or watching something and saying, that's terrible. I have to do
something about this. And if you if you get that feeling, that's what compassion is. I have to do something about this. If just because you don't feel like you can solve the issue doesn't mean don't do anything about it. Start working with the employee and help them in whatever ways you can.
That's what being a compassionate leaders is about. Don't don't imply that you can solve the problem from the beginning if you can't, but be clear about what you can do or what you think you can do, and work with the employee to get them there. And then ultimately it's on them. But if you can show that compassion those interactions, it will strengthen your relationship with them, and employees are more likely to want to put effort into solving problems if
they know that they're being surrounded by leaders who have compassion for them. Yeah, I think it's a it's a great point, you know, the element
of kind of taking action. And I think that I think sometime times leaders, you know what we were talking about, kind of get stuck in the idea that it's their responsibility to solve it versus it's kind of your responsibility to help, you know, and and and that means like everything from again offering resources or benefits to saying, you know, hey, my my my car broke down, you know what I mean, Like it broke down or I got an a fender bender, so I don't have, you know, reliable
means of transportation to get to work, and saying okay, well, like I obviously I can't buy you a new car, you know, like I can't. I can't. I can't solve that aspect of your transportation issue. But we can talk about all right, well, what can we do? How what are your options? What are things that are going on? Is there something that we can do to help you get public transport to get here? Can we adjust your schedule? Are I can you carpool with someone?
Like? Like, what are some things that we can do to help still accomplish the goal of the expectations of getting to work and doing the work so long as they can, so long as they're healthy and they're okay. But at the same time, like that's the element of helping of like here's some ideas, and here's you know what I can maybe suggest to you to think about so that you don't have to miss work, so that you can be
here and be on time and be able to get your work done. Like that, that's the helping piece versus saying, Okay, well, let me get on the phone, let me call uber, let me see what I can do, let me solve for this. And I think that's where again it's it's important to kind of help leaders work through being the person who gets
the help, but not the person that's responsible for the solve. That's I think that's a perfect perfect way of putting it, because when when a person comes to you as a leader with a problem this this, it can be this knee jerk to think, Okay, this is my problem to solve,
and that is a that is a tremendously heavy bag of bricks. So put that bag of bricks down and instead think about what you are actually capable of doing in a way that doesn't put your own job and your own relationship with your team at risk too, you know, right, because you can't. It can't start from a standpoint of you spending your time trying to solve this person's problem. They came to you and and you know what you have available to them, and you know what you don't. That's where it needs to
lie. And it's okay to say that upfront, as opposed to you know, it's not just sucks to be you see tomorrow and it's not okay, let's solve this together, and now you're putting off or putting on the back burner everything that is your responsibility as a leader to the rest of your team. You have to have that balance. And knowing that you have to have that balance and knowing that it is not your responsibility to solve these issues.
That's the first step. Entering these interactions with that knowledge and that kind of that reassurance, that saying Okay, yes I am a leader, Yes there are things that I can do, but no, it is not my responsibility
to fix this problem for this person. That is a tremendously freeing mindset to be in, and oftentimes it can lead you to think about ways outside the box to help this person, whereas if you approach it from the standpoint of now it's your responsibility to solve it, it can feel like I'm much more daunting task. Absolutely with that, it brings us to the end of this episode. This is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris. Talk to you all next time.