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Compassionate Power: Compassion, Leadership and the Bases of Power

Leadership and Power:

Power itself is neither good nor bad, we should think of it as moving flows of energy and information around to get things done. The use of power in leadership positions is regarded as exercising influence over others by utilizing various bases of social power to achieve organizational objective. The impact of power usage can be evaluated based on the outcomes (e.g. more threat for groups, or more safety, more harmony and collaboration, or more competition and conflict). Here we will outline some fundamental bases of power structures through a compassionate lens, based on social norms and context.

Why is power important behaviorally?

Generally, research has shown that power increases an orientation towards action with variable and less normative behavior, free expression and creative ideas that are context independent. More powerful folks initiate negotiations, resist social influence and take more risks in negotiations as they see their chances of success as better than average.

How does Power effect affect?

In general, high-power individuals are inclined to experience and express positive affect, such as optimism, enthusiasm and pride. But power can also decrease emotional responses to another person’s suffering with reduced complementary emotion (less compassion) as well. What might compassionate power look like?

Compassion and Power

While the use of power is ubiquitous in the pursuit of organizational leadership (which could induce both threat, and safety for employees), compassion covers multiple dimensions, affective, cognitive, and at the behavioral level can be observed at the individual, group and organizational level. Given the growing interest in compassionate leadership, and safe working environments the use of compassionate power is of interest, specifically as its use might seem counter intuitive. We define compassion as:

A sensitivity to the suffering of self and others with the motivation to reduce this suffering

Compassion flows in three directions, extending to others, receiving from others, and self-compassion. All three directions are correlated with personal and systemic wellbeing, and higher levels of functioning. Importantly, in organizational context, compassionate leadership is highly focused on collaboration, teamwork and alliance building, rather than competition and friction.

Social Bases of Compassionate Power

Reward power is the ability to grant a reward and might be construed as compassion or favoritism, depending on egalitarian norms within the organization. To effectively reward people, individuals must have an awareness of the needs and desires of their followers, as well as the valence of the reward. Given that compassion relates with empathic precision and emotional intelligence we can assume a compassionate leader would make wiser use of reward power.

Coercive power is the ability to take something away or punish someone for noncompliance. Coercive power often has a negative connotation, but it is part of the tools of an effective leader when used in limited but appropriate contexts. Compassion can enable a useful lens to facilitating an appreciation for the use of coercive power by examining the rationale behind its use (i.e. organizational, economic, individual or group problems, shortfalls, poor fits, etc.).

Beyond important considerations of daily operations and logistics, compassion can have to do with attending to abusive behaviors and preventing bullying in the workplace when needed (beyond ethical considerations, such dynamics are toxic, reduce productivity and create organizational strife). So, with regards to using power, compassion can be viewed as assertive and results oriented, rather than submissive.

Expert power is established knowledge, abilities and skills. Compassionate leadership want to use their knowledge to the benefit of others; happy for others to collaboratively learn from them. Compassionate leaders take pleasure in being able to foster the development and learning of those around; they use their own knowledge to support and help others and in this way others turn to them for wisdom and mentoring. This means that compassionate leaders are always eager to learn and acquire wisdom, as well as empower others in developing new skills and expertise.

Referent power stems from personal characteristics of the leader. It is good to have referent power and have admired followers and is linked to charisma. However, we can only understand this process through the co-creation of roles –leaders do not exist in vacuum – the degree to which others refer to them and follow them is dependent upon what the subordinate is looking for and want a leader to do or provide.

What gave Hitler his leadership power was his appeal as a strong leader responding to the anger and threat of certain sections of the general population. Nelson Mandela on the other hand had completely different referent leadership profile. Compassionate leadership styles are often communicated through non-verbal communications such as friendliness, voice tones, facial expressions, body postures, taking an interest in others and humor. So while charisma is key here, it should be highlighted that referent power can be comprised of very different elements and context.

Information power is special access to specific information. The few individuals holding the information that others need or want is of great value, and while specific/rare information is critical for competitive advantages, giving subordinates developmental opportunities to acquire this knowledge, empowering them to facilitate their needs as well as the needs of the organization give the leader an opportunity to continue their own development plans and expertise along with information power.

Applications?

The different forms of power effect individuals’ leadership approach, follower compliance, motivation and the success of the power approach. The following three questions can help leaders and managers determine whether they are using power compassionately:

1. Does the behavior produce an outcome for people inside and outside the organization that reflects a desire to address and prevent suffering and promote flourishing?

2. Does the power behavior respect long-term rights (legal and fair), needs and resources of all involved parties?

3. Does the power behavior treat all equitably and fairly; is it rooted in a sound ethical (legal and fair) basis?

Our new Brightsity Compassionate Leadership training program supports individuals and organizations in answering yes to all three questions. Brightsity is an online peer to peer learning platform, which offers scientifically backed programs, with clear evidence for participant success. For instance, the compassionate leadership program which develops and supports individuals and organizations ineffective and ethical uses of power has been shown to statistically significantly increase psychometric measures of:

1. Leadership skills

2.Compassion for others

3. Positive affect

4. Cooperation

As well as statistically significantly decrease:

5. Tendency towards psychopathy

6. Fears of giving compassion to others

7. Fear of receiving compassion from others

Leaders and managers who will take the Brightsity program more likely to demonstrate competence in their work, as well as empower their employees towards dimensions of personal competence, motivated self-determination, and self-efficacy. Opportunities for participation in decision making, and greater autonomy towards arrival at shared inspirational team goals are also more likely for those who benefit from Brightsity’s Compassionate Leadership program. For more details, please visit http://brightsity.com.

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Rolling out Brightsity’s Human Resources Certifications – and more

A competency based – well being templated taste of the 925 occupational development opportunities going live in 2020. This is our movement towards occupational certification using psychoeducational, motivational interviewing and P2P approaches, supported by psychometric evidence in one occupation, Human Resources Managers. Here is an early version of one session (now broken out) where participants have already worked out the intra and interpersonal skills at the base of the HRM competency map, and are moving into their technical competencies for the occupation.

Human Resources Skills Training (HRST) Set 3: Business Knowledge Competencies

(Week) Session 5:

Over the course of the next several sessions we are going to be taking a slightly different approach to developing your competence. Now that you are moving quite smoothly with your colleague, the time has come for you to serve as a conduit to the professional community by developing your social capital. Social capital is the capacity for your knowledge, skills and abilities to make a difference in another’s well-being by providing opportunities, sharing knowledge, skills and abilities to others and benefiting accordingly.

We will be reading and developing knowledge as before, but will now be also reaching out into the HR community to ask specific questions regarding competence, experience and insights, then bringing it back to our partners in our sessions as a blend of our experiences, expertise and new insights garnered by interacting with external subject matter experts. Where can you find these subject matter experts? From Listservs, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Google groups, your current workplace and most importantly, Associations. The critical understanding is that you might not have experience in the areas we are discussing, or years. The important appreciation is that you have much to gain from considering new perspectives while growing your network and sharing with your partner when you meet next.

Given the time you will be investing in contacting another Human Resources expert, taking notes and preparing your weighed responses to your partner over the course of the week, the readings will be much shorter this week and during the external contact sessions.

A few notes on interacting with your subject matter expert. Please recognize the generosity of the subject matter expert (SME) in sharing their experiences with you. Revisit our first session on active listening to consider the critical relevance of listening to growing your network. Remember that the SME was once in your position as they learned and grew into their position. Ask not only the provided questions, but for advise in growing your career and inviting an opportunity to help them as they continue to develop.

Ask yourself the questions first, formulating a response, writing it down and once done, contact your HR SME. Once you have taken in all the information, please prepare the difference between the two perspectives for your partner and when the meeting takes place, share both perspectives with your partner.

Knows Business Systems Thinking and Human Resources Department Organization

The Human Resources Department is structured, organized and equipped to provide overall strategy, direction and effective management of an organization’s human resources function to accomplish organizational objectives. Time has come to explore how HR department leaders achieve organization objectives, are part of management’s strategic planning effort and assist in making decisions that affect bottom-line results. These questions both help ensure that HR’s efforts are in accord with customer needs and suggest ways HR teams can take the lead in helping customers get the most out of the organization’s human resources.

Questions For (You and) Your External Subject Matter Expert:

  • Is there one department or function within the organization that is responsible and accountable for planning, establishing, overseeing and coordinating all human resource policies, systems and services? 
  • How does senior human resources management participate in addressing the organization’s strategic, tactical and policy issues? 
  • How does the senior human resources manager integrate all HR activities with the organization’s strategic business plan? 
  • How does the Human Resources department demonstrate a clear understanding of organizational and customer needs? What methods do they use to identify the needs,
  • and ensure the system is sensitive to these needs? How are these needs measured?
  • How are HR services and functions aligned and prioritized to meet organizational/employee and customer needs? 

Knowledge of Organizational Mission 

Understanding and communicating department functions and services to all customers is a critical component of all HR departments, and management must have the capability to ensure that all staff objectives and internal relationships are defined. Ensuring HR staff’s dual role as internal consultants to management as well as counselors to employees is recognized and rewarded is another walk along the tight wire for HR Leaders, but detailing and sharing staff competence and flexibility, cross-training, balancing employee needs with business needs and a bottom-line results orientation will help move organizational productivity and recognition of HR.

Questions For (You and) Your External Subject Matter Expert:

  • Has a department mission statement been developed explaining its purpose within the organization? How? How has the mission statement been communicated to all management personnel? How has this mission statement been communicated to other stakeholders throughout the organization? If so, to whom? How effective has the dissemination been? What benefits have been reaped? With what evidence?
  • How has the Human Resources department taken the lead in striving for a more empowered and participative work force (productivity improvement, cost reduction, quality improvement, employee engagement and employee satisfaction improvement and improved quality of work life programs, etc.?) 
  • Has a Human Resources department organization chart been published and distributed? If so, to whom? Who else might need this information? How does the organization chart define functional responsibilities and where customers can contact if service is needed? What measurable effect has this had?

Knows Business Processes to Improve Efficiency and Effectiveness

Human resources planning is particularly important for improving efficiency and effectiveness in emerging, rapid-growth and high tech businesses. While it can be argued that these days there is no such thing as “mature” businesses, even well established firms in need of new products, services, markets, acquisitions or divestitures must plan to identify, attract and reallocate the talent necessary for innovation, creativity and competition. Understanding internal assessment takes time and requires a huge amount of focus. Staying on top of organizational development activities in management development, training, career and succession planning make satisfying workforce a continual process within the HR organizations.

Questions For (You and) Your External Subject Matter Expert:

  • Is there one position accountable for reviewing the organization’s human resources requirements? How is this review carried out? Formally/informally? (please describe)
  • How often is this analysis updated (e.g., yearly, every two years, three years or more)? 
  • Do your projected needs include the following considerations? Availability of outside workforce demographics (age, sex, minority classification, education, skills level, occupations, etc.), and anticipated changes in your organizations technology, processes, products/services and markets? Personnel needs these changes will require (e.g. new skills, education, knowledge and abilities).
  • Which sources outside the organization provide these demographics? 
  • What sources within the organization are provided this information?
  • To whom are these projections communicated?    
  • How often? 
  • How far into the future?
  • Is the assessment used for training purposes? Recruitment purposes? Succession Planning?

Knows Value Chain

Knowledge possessed by human capital is among the most significant of an organization’s capabilities and is the core of all competitive advantages. Critical capabilities are often based on developing, distribution, and exchange of information and knowledge through human capital. Because knowledge base is grounded in organizational actions that may not be explicitly understood by all employees, making capabilities explicit, sharing the commonality across divisions with repetition and practice increase the value of a firm’s capabilities.

Capabilities are often developed in specific functional areas (such as HR, manufacturing, R&D, or marketing) or in a part of a functional area (for example, advertising). The value chain, popularized by Michael Porter’s book Competitive Advantage, is a useful tool for taking stock of organizational capabilities. A value chain is a chain of activities. In the value chain, some of the activities are deemed to be primary, in the sense that these activities add direct value.

For example, primary activities can be logistics (inbound and outbound), marketing, and service. Support activities include how the firm is organized (infrastructure), human resources, technology, and procurement. Products pass through all activities of the chain in order, and at each activity, the product gains some value, with the key question being how much value is added and how. An organization is effective to the extent that the chain of activities gives the products more added value than the sum of added values of all activities. The value chain is not the same as the costs occurring throughout the activities. For example, a diamond cutter may have a low cost, but the activity adds value to the end product, since an uncut diamond is less valuable than a cut and polished diamond.

Questions For (You and) Your External Subject Matter Expert:

  • What is the difference between a tangible and an intangible resource or capability? Where does HR lay within the value chain? How does HR add value in tangible and intangible ways to the organization (in recruitment, selection, training, development, compensation, workforce planning? Performance management, etc.)? 
  • What are some of the core competencies of HR?
  • Are there circumstances in which competitive advantage for an organization might be fleeting?

The full blown courses should be out by the end of the year – keep your eyes peeled or contact me to begin!