Leadership message: National Compassionate Leadership Week

Dear Colleagues,

No matter your experience, title, or role, someone looks to you as a leader. As healthcare professionals, we are seen as leaders within our community.

And within a high-functioning organization, we navigate various tiers that place us in leadership positions relative to others at any given time. While we often find ourselves in positions of leadership because we are good at what we do, there is another learned skill that transcends any level of task proficiency – compassion. Similar to cultivating wellness at work, cultivating compassion helps create a working environment where all are supported to have a fulfilling work life¹.

Compassion is often viewed as an innate personality trait, and while some people naturally show greater emotional intelligence and empathy, compassion can also be learned and strengthened. Whether we are conscious of it or not, those who receive compassion from their colleagues or managers tend to replicate it¹.

This is where compassionate leadership plays an influential role in setting the tone. Compassionate leaders are both sensitive to the challenges their teams face and are committed to helping them respond effectively to those challenges¹. The following are behaviors of compassionate leaders¹:

• They attend to those they lead by being present with them.
• They understand by engaging in dialogue.
• They empathize with feelings of distress or frustration without feeling overwhelmed or helpless.
• They help by taking thoughtful, skilled, and appropriate action to either relieve suffering or help with effective coping.

Small acts of kindness, an embedded organizational culture of caring for one another, and recognition of healthcare work’s emotional and physical impact can all facilitate workplace compassion². When we show people we value them as individuals, we create a sense of belonging.

After all, this is who we are at UC Davis Health. It’s reflected in our mission of “kindness, trust and inclusion.” Thank you for supporting our employee community!

Kind regards,

Sara Aghamohammadi, MD

Chief Wellness Officer
Clinical Professor
Pediatric Critical Care
Department of Pediatrics

References:

1. Benevene P, Buonomo I, West M. Editorial: Compassion and compassionate leadership in the workplace. Front Psychol. 2022 Dec 9;13:1074068. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1074068. PMID: 36571014; PMCID: PMC9784919.
2. Clyne, W., Pezaro, S., Deeny, K., & Kneafsey, R. (2018). Using social media to generate and collect primary data: The# ShowsWorkplaceCompassion twitter research campaign. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 4(2), e7686. https://doi.org/10.2196/ publichealth.7686