Heidi K. Gardner in Harvard Business Review on Leadership and Compassion
On February 16, 2021, CLP Distinguished Fellow Heidi K. Gardner and Mark Mortenson published a piece in Harvard Business Review, “Leaders Don’t Have to Choose Between Compassion and Performance.”
Gardner and Mortenson write:
We’re experiencing extreme demands for compassion at a time when there’s no room for compromising on outcomes. As a result, many leaders have fallen into the trap of thinking in terms of a binary choice between compassion or performance. They know that both are essential but are finding it hard to drive performance in a way that also maximizes support of their employees.
This dual need for increased compassion and higher performance is hitting while Covid fatigue has employees, leaders, and customers alike running on fumes. This problem of extreme demands isn’t going away. To deliver both compassion and performance in a sustainable way, leaders need data, prioritization, setup, and collaboration.