Remarkable Leaders, Remarkable Work: The Foundation Of A Brighter Future

By Laurel Donnellan, originally published at Forbes.com

The morning after the election, Sarah Feely, President of Compassionate Leaders Circle, and I launched the first episode of Remarkable Work Live. We aimed to  answer the two questions we’ll ask every future guest:

1. Why is practicing compassionate leadership important?
2. Why is finding purpose at work important?

The show is built on one conviction: a healthy future workforce needs remarkable leaders who offer remarkable work.

Remarkable leaders are compassionate leaders. We define compassionate leadership as using your head and your heart to inspire and influence people, so they are empowered to do the same for others.

What Compassion Really Means

People often confuse compassion with sympathy or empathy, but compassion goes a step further. It means feeling connected to someone’s pain and being moved to act on it. At Compassionate Leaders Circle, we define compassion as preventing or alleviating suffering. That isn’t soft. It takes courage and accountability.

The good news is that compassion can be learned. In a randomized controlled trial, researchers Dr. Hooria Jazaieri, Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas and colleagues found that targeted training significantly increased compassion for both self and others.

It pays off in business, too. Research published in Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022) found that compassionate leadership raised job satisfaction by more than 50%, increased commitment to the organization by 30%, and cut burnout by 40%.

Feely and I distill this into the Lead with Love Framework, three skills any leader can practice:

1. Self-compassion. Dr. Kristin Neff defines it as mindfulness, a sense of common humanity, and self-kindness.
2. Vulnerability. Dr. Brené Brown describes it as being open, authentic, and willing to take a risk.
3. Compassion for others. Drs. Monica Worline and Jane Dutton show that it creates a measurable advantage in innovation, collaboration, service, and retention.

Love at work can be warm and firm at once. Care and boundaries belong in the same conversation.

What We Mean by Remarkable Work

 

At Compassionate Leaders Circle, we picture remarkable work as an umbrella. Outside of the umbrella, it falls the cold rain of unremarkable work: the soul-sucking job that pays the bills and gives nothing back. Remarkable work is both emotionally and financially satisfying.

Two kinds of work fit under that umbrella. Soul work is the best use of your passion and purpose for your current chapter. Bridge work supports you on the way there. It pays the rent and builds the skills your soul work will need.

That’s where leaders come in. A remarkable leader gives people access to remarkable work, and that starts with the leader’s own work. It’s hard to lead people well if you don’t enjoy your work or the people you lead.

Early in my career, I believed that once you find your calling, work gets easier. I was wrong. After almost 30 years, I can say it plainly: having a job is hard, and having a calling is just as hard. You might as well choose the hard thing that fills your soul.

The Quiet Trap of Good Enough

Feely named something I hear in nearly every coaching conversation. “A lot of us are living really good enough,” she said. “There’s a lot of good enoughness.”

Good enough rarely sounds like a problem. Feely gave it its real voice: “I’m not as happy as I could be, but who am I to want more? Who am I to think I deserve remarkable work?”

Many people ask themselves that privately. McKinsey research found that 70% of employees say their sense of purpose is largely defined by their work, yet only 15% of frontline managers and employees say they are living their purpose day to day. Gallup’s 2025 research found that workers with a strong sense of purpose are 5.6 times as likely to be engaged. Good enough lives in that gap, and remarkable leaders close it.

Fear Is a Terrible Manager

For weeks before the election, our phones filled with fear-based texts and ads. Fear at work is quieter, but the brain reacts the same way.

“Even though we’re in the 21st century, our brains are still wired to be chased in the woods by saber-toothed tigers,” Feely explained. “That same amygdala kicks in the same reaction when a boss sits down and says something crappy to you and you start feeling your palms sweat.”

The cost is real. “People go into fear-based responses. They stop being as innovative. They stop being as creative. They stop sharing ideas. They stop trusting each other.”

Her conclusion is the heart of our work: “Compassionate leadership is the action-oriented leadership style that actually combats that fear-based response.”

Somewhere along the way, cruel leadership came into fashion. It has to go. As Feely put it, “On what planet are parents walking around wanting their kids to be cruel? And yet we’ve greenlighted it as a society.”

Three Places to Start

1. Believe you deserve it. Before any tactic, Feely said, “believing that you deserve remarkable work and that it’s out there for you is the first step.” You can’t offer remarkable work to others while quietly denying it to yourself.

2. Let people see you love your work. My dad was an engineer at IBM who helped build computers for the Apollo program. He loved his work, so I grew up knowing that was possible. Too few young people see adults love their work out loud. I try to be that model for my seven nieces and nephews and for my clients.

3. Hold candor and care together. Tell people the truth, and show them you’re on their side while you do it. Feely and I wrote The Compassionate Leader’s Companion: 12 Proven Practices to Unlock Remarkable Results as a workbook for exactly this.

Rising to What We Deserve

Whatever your politics, this election season showed people deciding they deserve more from their leaders. Your team is making the same calculation about you. Capable got you here. Remarkable is a choice you keep making, for yourself and for the people whose work you shape.

Listen to the episode, and join Feely and me live for Remarkable Work Live every Wednesday at noon Central on Substack, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You can also find us at Compassionate Leaders Circle.