An Introduction to Fierce Compassion

What happens when there’s no more room to work harder?

Therapists have used the power of compassion successfully for decades. Dr Mary has taken this researched-based approach and transformed it for coaching leaders.

The dark side of high achievement culture

You already work with excellence in your role as an executive leader. You’ve done the courses, learnt skills, you’ve worked really really hard.

Yet you may sense a lack of connection - with yourself, with others, with the meaning of the work you do. There’s nothing wrong with you; you don’t need to be fixed; you’re not broken.

Yet the culture we operate in, what we’ve been entrained to do is to work even harder… and this equals results? That’s what everything tells us should bring success.

But there’s a dark side to high achievement culture when perfectionism and striving for excellence becomes laced with self-criticism, stymying creative risk taking.

An atmosphere of stress and pressure blooms and leads to unthoughtful or unskillful communication, damaging collegial relationships. You watch your team’s capacity for problem solving and productivity falter and start to sense the limits of traditional models of hustling and working harder.

Creating space inside accelerated change and uncertainty

We live in a time of ever accelerating speeds of change and increasing uncertainty. We may long for a past illusion of stability and predictability that is never coming back.

Clarity doesn’t come in the noise. As a leader you need a process of space making that you can come back to time and time again no matter what the challenge is.

Typical coaching jumps to ‘problem solving’—quick fixes and hacks, which sometimes just prolong the agony. Talented, dedicated people end up leaving because they just can’t work any harder, or they stay in a role, but are just going through the motions.

When we are in a state of overwhelm, anxiety or disengagement, we can’t see the woods for the trees anymore. It isn’t helpful to take action or make decisions from that place–and if you do, you’ve missed the opportunity for your team to explore its next evolution.

Compassion on the brain

Psychologists have understood that compassion can rewire our brain and improve our physiological responses to stress for decades – yet compassion is frequently misunderstood to be about being endlessly patient, kind and nice.

Compassion differs from mere sympathy and care. It’s the ability to be aware of your own and other’s distress, and also to be motivated to take action to alleviate yours or another’s suffering.

It includes the courage to really be honest about how we are thinking and feeling and to sit with the discomfort of our failures and shortcomings. It’s the bravery to take actions that might take us out of our comfort zone or challenge us to be vulnerable.

‘Fierce’ highlights the strength that true compassion takes. And research shows that developing our capacity for compassion brings many benefits to physical and mental wellbeing for ourselves and others, and unlocks our creativity. (learn more)

Compassion in the workplace has proven results like:

Increased wellbeing: reduced heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol;
Decreased sick leave, absenteeism, and high achiever burnout;
A greater sense of meaning, purpose, and that work matters;
Increased staff retention and job satisfaction; Increased staff positivity and organisational loyalty; and
A culture of safety and inclusivity; Increased innovation, effectiveness, and creativity.

The Fierce Compassion Process

The Fierce Compassion process offers the first critical steps out of the woods. It’s the support to pause and develop a broader perspective, which brings greater awareness.

As we gain a sense of space and perspective, we can learn to generate understanding of ourselves (even those bits we are ashamed of) and others and from here cultivate empathy from our foibles, challenges, failures and inadequacies–touching the vulnerability of our human experience.

These important steps of awareness, understanding and empathy are the foundation from which we can consider what wise action to take. Action–this time–which includes the whole picture, so that solutions are broader, richer, more holistic and thorough.

Read more about the Fierce Compassion Process:

As we emotionally regulate, our brain is able to access its full capability–suddenly seeing things in a new light–undiscovered opportunities and underutilised potential resources become clear.

Elevate how you lead

We rarely consider that compassion is a capacity that we can cultivate–and yet it can unlock a process of reflecting and learning that connects us more deeply with ourselves and others and create in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Most self-help focuses on self-compassion, which while important, often ignores the link to compassion for others. Historical ideas about compassion say, “you’ve got to be self-compassionate before being compassionate to others”, but that’s not what I have seen in clinical practice.

Often people – especially high performers – are very compassionate, and understanding of others, but lack compassion for themselves.

In a Fiercely Compassionate workplace, we learn to use our ability to be compassionate to others as an aid in being more compassionate to ourselves. And of course when we are aware and caring towards our own shortcomings it can help us be more tolerant and understanding, increasing our compassion for others.

Therapists have used the power of compassion successfully for decades. Dr Mary has taken this researched based approach and transformed it for coaching leaders.

Book a connection call with Dr Mary to find out more about Fierce Compassion leadership and transformation coaching.

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