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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 October 2023

Kevin Östergård, Suvi Kuha and Outi Kanste

The purpose of this study is to identify and synthesise the best evidence on health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to identify and synthesise the best evidence on health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed-methods systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for mixed-methods systematic reviews using a convergent integrated approach. A systematic search was done in January 2023 in PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Medic and MedNar databases. The results were reported based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses. The data was analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings

Ten studies were included in the review (five qualitative and five quantitative). The thematic analysis identified seven analytical themes as follows: treating professionals as individuals with an empathetic and understanding approach; building a culture for open and safe communication; being there for professionals; giving all-encompassing support; showing the way as a leader and as a strong professional; building circumstances for efficient work and better well-being; and growing into a compassionate leader.

Practical implications

Compassionate leadership can possibly address human resource-related challenges, such as health-care professionals’ burnout, turnover and the lack of patient safety. It should be taken into consideration by health-care leaders, their education and health-care organisations when developing their effectiveness.

Originality/value

This review synthesised the knowledge of compassionate leadership in health care and its benefits by providing seven core elements of health-care leaders’ and professionals’ experiences and perceptions of compassionate leadership.

Details

Leadership in Health Services, vol. 37 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1879

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 March 2019

Alistair Hewison, Yvonne Sawbridge and Laura Tooley

The purpose of this study was to explore compassionate leadership with those involved in leading system-wide end-of-life care. Its purpose was to: define compassionate leadership

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore compassionate leadership with those involved in leading system-wide end-of-life care. Its purpose was to: define compassionate leadership in the context of palliative and end-of-life care; collect accounts of compassionate leadership activity from key stakeholders in end-of-life and palliative care; and identify examples of compassionate leadership in practice.

Design/methodology/approach

Four focus groups involving staff from a range of healthcare organisations including hospitals, hospices and community teams were conducted to access the accounts of staff leading palliative and end-of-life care. The data were analysed thematically.

Findings

The themes that emerged from the data included: the importance of leadership as role modelling and nurturing; how stories were used to explain approaches to leading end-of-life care; the nature of leadership as challenging existing practice; and a requirement for leaders to manage boundaries effectively. Rich and detailed examples of leadership in action were shared.

Research limitations/implications

The findings indicate that a relational approach to leadership was enacted in a range of palliative and end-of-life care settings.

Practical implications

Context-specific action learning may be a means of further developing compassionate leadership capability in palliative and end-of-life care and more widely in healthcare settings.

Originality/value

This paper presents data indicating how compassionate leadership, as a form of activity, is envisaged and enacted by staff in healthcare.

Details

Leadership in Health Services, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1879

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 30 April 2021

Emeka Smart Oruh, Chima Mordi, Chianu Harmony Dibia and Hakeem Adeniyi Ajonbadi

This study explores how compassionate managerial leadership style can help to mitigate workplace stressors and alleviate stress experiences among employees — particularly in an…

11548

Abstract

Purpose

This study explores how compassionate managerial leadership style can help to mitigate workplace stressors and alleviate stress experiences among employees — particularly in an extreme situation, such as the current global COVID-19 pandemic. The study's context is Nigeria's banking, manufacturing and healthcare sectors, which have a history of high employee stress levels.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a qualitative, interpretive methodology, the study adopts the thematic analysis process (TAP) to draw and analyse data from semi-structured telephone interviews with 10 banking, 11 manufacturing and 9 frontline healthcare workers in Nigeria.

Findings

It was found that a compassionate managerial leadership can drive a considerate response to employees' “fear of job (in)security”, “healthcare risk” and concerns about “work overload, underpayment and delayed payment”, which respondents considered to be some of the key causes of increased stress among employees during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Research limitations/implications

The study is limited to exploring the relationship between compassionate managerial leadership and an organisation's ability to manage employee stress in the COVID-19 situation, using 30 samples from organisations operating in three Nigerian cities and sectors. Future studies may involve more Nigerian cities, sectors and samples. It may also possibly include quantitative combination to allow generalisation of findings.

Practical implications

In order to survive in extreme situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations are forced to take drastic and often managerialist-driven work measures which can trigger high stress levels, low productivity and absenteeism among employees. Hence, organisations would benefit from implementing compassion-driven policies that are more inclusive and responsive to the workplace stressors facing employees.

Originality/value

Employee stress has been widely explored in many areas, including definitions, stressors, strains, possible interventions and coping strategies. There remains, however, a dearth of scholarship on how management-leadership compassion can help to reduce employee stress levels in extreme conditions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic — particularly in emerging economies.

Details

Employee Relations: The International Journal, vol. 43 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 July 2020

Michel Dion

The purpose of this paper is to examine how four styles of “morally ambiguous” leadership could have a philosophical basis, while relatively contributing to efficiently prevent…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how four styles of “morally ambiguous” leadership could have a philosophical basis, while relatively contributing to efficiently prevent bribery and extortion in the organizational life.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper identifies four styles of morally ambiguous leadership in taking philosophically based representations of “sociopolitical saviors” into account: “occasionally cruel saviors” (Niccolò Machiavelli); “occasionally compassionate saviors” (Adam Smith),; “socially conformist and compassionate” saviors (David Hume); and “revolutionary and implicitly compassionate” saviors (Hannah Arendt). Morally ambiguous leaders choose paradoxical ways to assume their moral responsibility. They use paradoxical strategies to prevent bribery and extortion in the organizational life.

Findings

The philosophical basis of those styles of morally ambiguous leadership unveils two basic antagonisms: the antagonism between cruelty and compassion; and the antagonism between social conformism and revolutionary spirit. The axis of power (Machiavelli) does not allow any connection between both antagonisms. The axis of self-interest (Smith) shows an intermediary positioning in both antagonisms (relatively compassionate, implicitly revolutionary). The axis of social conformism/compassion (Hume) and the axis of revolutionary spirit/compassion (Arendt) make leaders deepen their paradoxical positionings about moral issues.

Research limitations/implications

The four styles of morally ambiguous leadership have not been empirically assessed. Moreover, the analysis of Eastern and Western philosophies could allow decision-makers to identity other philosophically based and morally ambiguous positionings about moral issues. Other philosophies could also unveil further kinds of antagonisms that could be applied to prevention strategies against bribery and extortion schemes.

Originality/value

The paper presents a philosophically based analysis of morally ambiguous leadership and its potential impact on prevention strategies against bribery and extortion schemes.

Details

Journal of Financial Crime, vol. 27 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1359-0790

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 March 2018

Alistair Hewison, Yvonne Sawbridge, Robert Cragg, Laura Rogers, Sarah Lehmann and Jane Rook

The purpose of this paper is to report an evaluation of a leading-with-compassion recognition scheme and to present a new framework for compassion derived from the data.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report an evaluation of a leading-with-compassion recognition scheme and to present a new framework for compassion derived from the data.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative semi-structured interviews, a focus group and thematic data analysis. Content analysis of 1,500 nominations of compassionate acts.

Findings

The scheme highlighted that compassion towards staff and patients was important. Links to the wider well-being strategies of some of the ten organisations involved were unclear. Awareness of the scheme varied and it was introduced in different ways. Tensions included the extent to which compassion should be expected as part of normal practice and whether recognition was required, association of the scheme with the term leadership, and the risk of portraying compassion as something separate, rather than an integral part of the culture. A novel model of compassion was developed from the analysis of 1,500 nominations.

Research limitations/implications

The number of respondents in the evaluation phase was relatively low. The model of compassion contributes to the developing knowledge base in this area.

Practical implications

The model of compassion can be used to demonstrate what compassion “looks like”, and what is expected of staff to work compassionately.

Originality/value

A unique model of compassion derived directly from descriptions of compassionate acts which identifies the impact of compassion on staff.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 August 2021

Carolyn Jackson, Tamsin McBride, Kim Manley, Belinda Dewar, Beverley Young, Assumpta Ryan and Debbie Roberts

This paper aims to share the findings of a realist evaluation study that set out to identify how to strengthen nursing, midwifery and allied health professions (NMAHP) leadership

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to share the findings of a realist evaluation study that set out to identify how to strengthen nursing, midwifery and allied health professions (NMAHP) leadership across all health-care contexts in the UK conducted between 2018 and 2019. The collaborative research team were from the Universities of Bangor, Ulster, the University of the West of Scotland and Canterbury Christ Church University.

Design/methodology/approach

Realist evaluation and appreciative inquiry were used across three phases of the study. Phase 1 analysed the literature to generate tentative programme theories about what works, tested out in Phase 2 through a national social media Twitter chat and sense-making workshops to help refine the theories in Phase 3. Cross-cutting themes were synthesised into a leadership framework identifying the strategies that work for practitioners in a range of settings and professions based on the context, mechanism and output configuration of realist evaluation. Stakeholders contributed to the ongoing interrogation, analysis and synthesis of project outcomes.

Findings

Five guiding lights of leadership, a metaphor for principles, were generated that enable and strengthen leadership across a range of contexts. – “The Light Between Us as interactions in our relationships”, “Seeing People’s Inner Light”, “Kindling the Spark of light and keeping it glowing”, “Lighting up the known and the yet to be known” and “Constellations of connected stars”.

Research limitations/implications

This study has illuminated the a-theoretical nature of the relationships between contexts, mechanisms and outcomes in the existing leadership literature. There is more scope to develop the tentative programme theories developed in this study with NMAHP leaders in a variety of different contexts. The outcomes of leadership research mostly focussed on staff outcomes and intermediate outcomes that are then linked to ultimate outcomes in both staff and patients (supplemental). More consideration needs to be given to the impact of leadership on patients, carers and their families.

Practical implications

The study has developed additional important resources to enable NMAHP leaders to demonstrate their leadership impact in a range of contexts through the leadership impact self-assessment framework which can be used for 360 feedback in the workplace using the appreciative assessment and reflection tool.

Social implications

Whilst policymakers note the increasing importance of leadership in facilitating the culture change needed to support health and care systems to adopt sustainable change at pace, there is still a prevailing focus on traditional approaches to individual leadership development as opposed to collective leadership across teams, services and systems. If this paper fails to understand how to transform leadership policy and education, then it will be impossible to support the workforce to adapt and flex to the increasingly complex contexts they are working in. This will serve to undermine system integration for health and social care if the capacity and capability for transformation are not attended to. Whilst there are ambitious global plans (WHO, 2015) to enable integrated services to be driven by citizen needs, there is still a considerable void in understanding how to authentically engage with people to ensure the transformation is driven by their needs as opposed to what the authors think they need. There is, therefore, a need for systems leaders with the full skillset required to enable integrated services across place-based systems, particularly clinicians who are able to break down barriers and silo working across boundaries through the credibility, leadership and facilitation expertise they provide.

Originality/value

The realist evaluation with additional synthesis from key stakeholders has provided new knowledge about the principles of effective NMAHP leadership in health and social care, presented in such a way that facilitates the use of the five guiding lights to inform further practice, education, research and policy development.

Details

Leadership in Health Services, vol. 34 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1879

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 26 April 2022

Hilary L. Coulson, Yali Zou and Frank Fernandez

Abstract

Details

Transformational University Leadership
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-118-9

Article
Publication date: 23 August 2011

Joseph A. Raelin

Although readers of this journal are familiar with work‐based learning and with leadership, they may not have entertained the link between them. The paper aims to contend that the…

3078

Abstract

Purpose

Although readers of this journal are familiar with work‐based learning and with leadership, they may not have entertained the link between them. The paper aims to contend that the link is that the former changes the latter. The authentic practice of work‐based learning produces a more collective form of leadership, matching the former's founding principles and practices.

Design/methodology/approach

Guided by the author's long‐standing research of both work‐based learning and leadership, he searches for commonalities in their underlying conditions, proposing a means to identify their relationship. The author's model invites both further study by researchers and field replication by practitioners.

Findings

A number of compatible principles and practices undergird the fields of work‐based learning and collective leadership; namely, their mutual commitment to dialogic processes based on nonjudgmental inquiry; their accentuation of the state of genuine curiosity – even doubt; their acceptance of critical challenge; and their willingness to disturb preconceived world views on behalf of a common good.

Practical implications

Managers and executives taking advantage of work‐based learning, when offered as an authentic practice, may acknowledge its powerful impact on leadership, but as in the case of learning, they must be willing to sustain its collaborative nature to release its potential.

Social implications

When people in a community or organization authentically share leadership, it ignites their natural talent to contribute to the growth of that community and it also elevates the value of trust by bringing genuineness to the community.

Originality/value

Practitioners in the development and learning field already know the value of work‐based learning for learning purposes, but in this article, it is shown to impact leadership in a profound way – it changes it. As a collective and reflective practice, it responds to contemporary needs to find ways to release people to contribute their natural talents on behalf of mutual action.

Details

Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, vol. 25 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7282

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 9 March 2021

Michael Jenkins

Abstract

Details

Expert Humans: Critical Leadership Skills for a Disrupted World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-260-7

Abstract

Details

Lived Experiences of Exclusion in the Workplace: Psychological & Behavioural Effects
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-309-0

1 – 10 of over 2000