Compassion and Accountability: Not Mutually Exclusive
“Finally, all of you, be of one mind, sympathetic, loving toward one another, compassionate, humble” (1 Peter 3:8).
As Catholics, we are called to be compassionate with one another. Merriam-Webster defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” The word literally means “to suffer together.”
How does the topic of compassion relate to the workplace, and how does it relate to good leadership? In the book “Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results,” Nate Regier, Ph.D., attempts to make the connection. A clinical psychologist and CEO of a leadership consulting company, he sums it up in this statement: “Compassion and accountability are not opposites.”
Regier argues that the highest-functioning teams are the ones led by people who encourage this type of leadership in all employees, not just the ones in the C-suite. He walks the reader through why compassion is essential, how it goes hand in hand with accountability, how to incorporate compassion into workplace culture, and how to combat the naysayers.
The Compassion Equation
“You are a valuable, capable, and responsible part of the compassion equation. You can and should take elegant care of yourself along the way,” writes Regier.
He defines compassionate accountability as “the process of building connection while also getting results” and says that by practicing it, we can “simultaneously affirm and uphold that people are valuable, capable, and responsible.”
He goes on to talk about several pitfalls:
The danger of a leader’s feeling responsible for an individual’s behavior.
Confronting behavior versus questioning a person’s character.
Being vulnerable without oversharing.
Regier assures the reader that leaders can avoid these situations with the right mindset and behaviors: listening and validating the person’s feelings and focusing on the behavior, not the person.
The structure of the book felt clunky to me. The introduction explains that the book includes four parts, three switches, six areas of focus, three important questions, and five common misconceptions. It wasn’t clear which I was reading at any point in time. The chapters were short (good) and included a main-point summary at the end (also good). The book also has a compassionate accountability assessment in the appendix. An individual or a team can use the assessment, and the book includes the criteria to assess the score.
Despite the layout, the book is easy to read and well-researched. Regier lays out the concepts from theory to practice and includes many real-world stories to illustrate how compassionate accountability plays out in the workplace.
Compassionate Relationships
Regier's main points apply to relationships, both inside and outside the workplace:
Showing compassion doesn’t mean you’re a pushover.
A humble leader is still respected.
Requiring standards and expectations of your team doesn’t mean you don’t care about them as individuals.
“Compassion isn’t just tolerance, safety, caring, empathy, alleviation of suffering, kindness, nonviolence or even inclusion,” Regier writes. “Compassion means truly embracing that our fates are codependent. We aren’t just going through the same trials; we truly are in this together.”
God calls us to be patient, loving, and gracious to one another while being accountable. I don’t know if Regier identifies with any religion, but I can’t help but make the connection:
Jesus was humble.
He listened to validate others.
He had high expectations and held others accountable.
He led by example.
This book is a good reminder to be good humans first—at work, in our home, and our parishes. We can all be an example of compassionate accountability, regardless of our title or whether we work in a big corporation or are self-employed.
Cathi Kennedy is passionate about building relationships. At the University of Notre Dame, she advises graduate students for the Mendoza College of Business. Her background is in marketing and communications, and she recently received her MBA. Impassioned writer, voracious reader, aspiring knitter. Married to a musician and mom to two amazing sons. Cathi is a convert to Catholicism and seeks to learn something new about her faith every day. Connect with Cathi: LinkedIn • Instagram • Facebook • Blog