Compassion

Being able to see another’s suffering and respond to it allows us to better understand our clients’ needs and wants. It is then we can create solutions that our key audience needs, not what we assume they need. It was through the process of working with organisations as they restructure or undergo significant change that I realised the purest intention and power of using emotions and how essential they are to the connection they bring to the human endeavour. I realised more than ever the importance of the care factor – allowing people to be seen, heard and valued for the contribution they offer.

I realised that compassion and emotion are needed to breed success into any workplace, business or organisation. One of the things I’ve also learned from working with effective leaders is that they embody traits such as practising compassion and using their emotions as rocket fuel. Most people want to feel heard and understood, so these traits are needed to connect on a human level. As a leader you must have compassion and curiosity to understand who someone is at their core – their goals, fears, aspirations, passions, beliefs, insecurities – all of it.

Compassion is foundational to both innovation and entrepreneurship. To find opportunities, we must be looking with our ears and listening with our hearts. Clients may not know how to create the actual product or solution that will ease their pain points, but they are certainly the best equipped to articulate their challenges – that is, for anyone who is willing to listen.

So, perhaps, when we scoff when we’re told to get in touch with our ‘feminine side’, it’s time we take it to the bank, especially if we want to remain in this age of compassionate opportunity and emotiondriven entrepreneurship.