The Compassion ParadoxLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. The Compassion Paradox article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Dictionary.com defines paradox as “a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.” As I study the field, I find many paradoxes associated with leadership. I see that developing the skills of a great leader requires us to work in apparently contradictory ways that are nonetheless true. I often see my clients and seminar participants wrestle with these issues because they present themselves as extreme and contradictory positions. Many people struggle because they view the paradoxical extremes as either/or positions rather than both/and positions. One dilemma many people have difficulty confronting is, what I call, the Compassion Paradox – As a leader, you must be compassionate AND you must hold people accountable. Sometimes I say it this way: You cannot be too soft if you want to be compassionate. Let me explain. Depending on their personality style and personal experience, most people fall more on one side or the other of these two extremes. They are great at holding people accountable, but not so great at showing compassion. Or, they are great at showing compassion, but not so great at holding people accountable. Learning to work both ends of this divide is one key to becoming an effective leader. We normally fail to appropriately apply this principle because we do not really understand the two extremes. People who are comfortable with accountability view compassion as too “soft”. And, people who are comfortable with compassion view accountability as too “hard”. The truth is that neither extreme is either “soft” or “hard”. They are simply different responses to different leadership situations. Let’s consider the definitions of these two responses Compassion - deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. Accountability – the condition of being called to account; answerable. As leaders, we must be aware of people’s needs and work to meet them – i.e. we must be compassionate. We must also hold people accountable. If we fail to hold people accountable, the organization fails. If we do not address concerns, people work at bare minimum levels or they leave. Again, the organization fails. Some people are comfortable with this paradox. I find that most are not. My personal challenge is this - I fall more on the compassion side than on the accountability side. With conscious effort, I have improved my ability to hold people accountable. It is still not natural or comfortable for me. I realize, though, that it is necessary. Whatever your bent, I encourage you to look at your behaviors as a leader. Are you more comfortable with compassion or with accountability? Either way, work to develop comfort with the other. When you can choose your response based on the situation, rather than your personal comfort, you will be skilled at applying the Compassion Paradox. You will be one step closer to acting as a highly effective leader. Copyright 2005, Guy Harris You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to the author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact the author prior to use in printed media.
|
More Articles:1. Executives and Emotional Self Awareness By Nick Arrizza, M.D. A major problem impairing an executive's performance is his Emotional Blind Spots. Emotions, whether we like them or not, have a significant impact on one's decisions. An example is the Enron case where executives ran into severe ethical and legal consequences after falling prey to the destructive negative emotions of greed and self-interest. It is perplexing how many success driven executives, choose to fear addressing the impact of negative emotions on personal and organizational performance… 2. The Myth Of Relationship Selling Revealed At Last By Rich Harshaw The second you quit being the 'best deal' for your customer, he'll drop you like a hot potato. Regardless of how many lunches you've bought him or birthdays you've remembered.Every business we've ever consulted tells us the same thing about their sales force. They say that their industry is different from all the others and the only effective way for their salespeople to sell is to build buddy-buddy relationships with their prospects and customers. We hear it from printers, bankers, jewelers, … 3. Praise Matters By Kevin Eikenberry In working with businesses and organizations of all kinds, I hear the same concerns everyday:How do we increase productivity?How do we improve Customer service?How do we keep people actively engaged in their work and with others on their team?How do we reduce turnover?How do we improve safety?Even if you aren’t thinking about or concerned about every one of those questions, I’m sure at least one of them has kept you up at night in the past.As leaders we think about these things because they im… 4. Create Your Methodology Based on a Standard Framework - Part One By Lucas Rodriguez Cervera OK. So you have decided that your organization has to improve the way in which it works. You have chosen to implement a methodology as the best way to achieve this goal. And now you ask yourself, where do I start? Whatever the discipline you are trying to model (from software development to supply chain management), it is highly probable that a standard framework exists, that can serve as the basis for your own methodology.WHAT IS A STANDARD FRAMEWORK?A standard framework is a set of be… |
||||
