Compassion Research

Books by Compassion Scholars, Thinkers and Practitioners:

Lesser, Marc. Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader: Lessons from Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen.

Neff, Kristin. Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.

Ryan, Pamela. Impact Imperative: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Investing to Transform the Future.

Scott Shute. The Full Body Yes: Change Your Work and Your World from the Inside Out.

Tarraf, Laila. Strong Like Water: How I Found the Courage to Lead with Love in Business and in Life.

Trower, Tevis. The Game Changer's Guide to Radical Success.

Trzeciak, Stephen and Mazzarelli, Anthony. Compassionomics (The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes a Difference).

Worline, Monica C. and Dutton, Jane E.. Awakening Compassion at Work.

Goodson, Robert. Lead with Mercy: The Business Case for Compassion

Careers

The impact of meaningful work on our productivity at work, our health and wellbeing, and our critical relationships

53% of workers are in the "not engaged" category. 13% of workers are "actively disengaged". They may be generally satisfied but are not cognitively and emotionally connected to their work and workplace; they will usually show up to work and do the minimum required but will quickly leave their company for a slightly better offer. Employee Engagement on the Rise in the U.S.

In a 2010 review, Brent D. Rosso, PhD, and colleagues noted that finding meaning in one's work has been shown to increase motivation, engagement, empowerment, career development, job satisfaction, individual performance and personal fulfillment, and to decrease absenteeism and stress. Research in Organizational Behavior, 2010.

67% of employees say they are sometimes, very often or always burned out at work. Employee Burnout, Part 1: The 5 Main Cause

9 of 10 employees are willing to trade a percentage of their lifetime earnings for greater meaning at work. Meaning and Purpose at Work

Overall, people who report higher levels of satisfaction with their job also report higher levels of life satisfaction Revisiting the link between job satisfaction and life satisfaction: The role of basic psychological needs.

Across age groups, workers want meaningful work badly enough that they’re willing to pay for it. Meaning and Purpose at Work

Meaningful work has an important positive impact on the well-being of human beings and builds supportive relationships and a sense of community among people. Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline

Employees who place a higher value on meaningful work occupy more senior, skilled positions, and stay longer. Meaning and Purpose at Work

Raises and promotions are more common for employees who have meaningful work. Employees who find their jobs highly meaningful are more likely to have received a raise in the past year, and are also more likely to have received a promotion in the past six months. Meaning and Purpose at Work

Increased levels of commitment, empowerment, satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment result when individuals are pursuing a profound purpose or are engaging in work that is personally important. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies

A 2018 study in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that adults with poor quality work - as measured by low pay, low job satisfaction, low job control and high job anxiety - had higher levels of chronic stress and biomarkers of cardiovascular and metabolic disease than adults who remained unemployed. Tarani Chandola, Nan Zhang. "Re-employment, job quality, health and allostatic load biomarkers: prospective evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study." International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 47, Issue 1, Feb 2018, Pp 47–57.

“Hating your job is the new smoking.” Hating your job increases your chances of getting seriously sick. In a study of 21,290 US nurses conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, work-related stress had the same impact as smoking or a sedentary lifestye. The study found that, regardless of age, gender and socioeconomic status, men and women who experience job strain and long working hours are 10-40% more likely to experience heart disease and stroke compared to people without those same work stressors. Kivimäki, Mika, and Ichiro Kawachi. 2015. “Work Stress as a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Disease.” Current Cardiology Reports 17 (9): 74-8.

“Employees with low levels of job satisfaction are most likely to experience emotional burn-out, to have reduced levels of self-esteem, and to have raised levels of both anxiety and depression.... Dissatisfaction at work can be hazardous to an employee’s mental health and wellbeing. Importantly, the relationship is much greater than with any work characteristic evaluated.” (such as working hours). “Dissatisfaction at work is hazardous to an employee’s mental health and wellbeing.” The Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Health: A Meta Analysis. Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

According to a University of Manchester study, having a “poor quality” job — a job you hate — is actually worse for your mental health than having no job at all

Research from the Human Relations journal, as Business News Daily reports, found that those who stayed at companies because they felt obligated or couldn’t find other job opportunities were more likely to experience exhaustion, stress, and burnout.

Children were more mentally healthy - defined as showing fewer behavior issues from the Child Behaviors Checklist - when parents cared about work as a source of challenge, creativity, and enjoyment, without regard to the time spent.

To the extent that a father was performing well in and feeling satisfied with his job, his children were likely to demonstrate relatively few behavior problems, independent of how long he was working.
For mothers, having authority and discretion at work was associated with mentally healthier children.

Stewart Friedman. "How Our Careers Affect our Children." Harvard Business Review. Nov 2018.

Compassion is an evidence-based skill that is integral to leading effectively and holding teams together. "Leading with Compassion Has Research-Backed Benefits" Harvard Business Review, 2023

88% of employees believe that a company with a strong culture of compassion positively impacts their overall job satisfaction. Bussinessolver "State of Workplace Empathy" Report, 2019

89% of employees in compassionate organizations feel a strong sense of belonging and loyalty to the company. Bussinessolver "State of Workplace Empathy" Report, 2019

84% of employees are more likely to stay with a company that demonstrates a high level of empathy and compassion. Bussinessolver "State of Workplace Empathy" Report, 2019

92% of employees rate leaders' compassion as a key factor in their effectiveness. DDI World, "Global Leadership Forecast 2021"

Leadership

In 2023, the cost of poor management and lost productivity from employees worldwide who are not engaged or actively disengaged was $8.8 trillion. That’s 9% of the global GDP. State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report, Gallup

According to a study conducted by Jacqueline Carter of the Potential Project, compassionate leadership among employees increased job satisfaction by over 50%, commitment to the organization by 30%, and decreased burnout by 40%. Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way, Harvard Business Review, 2022

80% of respondents rated leadership a high priority for their organizations, but only 41% think their organizations are ready to meet their leadership requirements. Global Human Capital Trends (2019)

Compassion is clearly a hugely overlooked skill in leadership training. Taking on greater responsibilities and pressure can rewire our brains and…force us to stop caring about other people as much as we used to. Of over 1,000 surveyed leaders, 91% said compassion is very important for leadership, and 80% would like to enhance their compassion but do not know how. Power Can Corrupt Leaders: Compassion Can Save Them

Compassion positively impacts productivity, employee and customer retention, profitability, and financial performance Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power that Elevates People and Organizations by Monica C. Worline and Jane E. Dutton, 2017

Compassion supports strategic advantage in innovation, service quality, collaboration, retaining talented people, employee and customer engagement, and adaptability to change. Harvard Business Review: Power Can Corrupt Leaders, Compassion Can Save Them, February 2018

Compassion positively impacts productivity, employee and customer retention, profitability, and financial performance. Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power That Elevates People and Organizations:

Compassion supports strategic advantage in innovation, service quality, collaboration, retaining talented people, employee and customer engagement, and adaptability to change. Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power That Elevates People and Organizations:

91% of leaders surveyed say compassion is very important for leadership and 80% say they want to enhance their compassion but don’t know-how. Harvard Business Review: Power Can Corrupt Leaders, Compassion Can Save Them, February 2018

The effective leader who experiences chronic power stress 1) Will lose some ability to adapt, learn, and stay healthy. 2) Has difficulty sustaining the mental, emotional, perceptual, and behavioral processes that enabled effectiveness. Developing Sustainable Leaders Through Coaching and Compassion

While empathy can lead to fatigue, compassion can increase our resilience and improve our approach to stressful situations. Compassion is Better than Empathy: Neuroscience Explains Why

If we’re serious about building great companies and the human-based capabilities of organizations, we need to learn how to understand and react to the whole human. Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power that Elevates People and Organizations

Positively impacts productivity, employee and customer retention, profitability, and financial performance. Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power that Elevates People and Organizations

Supports strategic advantage in innovation, service quality, collaboration, retaining talented people, employee and customer engagement, and adaptability to change. Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power that Elevates People and Organizations

Coaching

Employees are demanding a shift away from traditional performance management practices and toward “performance development” that is individualized to their natural talents, performance needs and sense of purpose. Employee Engagement on the Rise in the U.S.

The cost of poor management and lost productivity from employees in the U.S. who are not engaged or actively disengaged to be between $960 billion and $1.2 trillion per year. Employee Engagement on the Rise in the U.S.

Managers - Only 8% Strongly agree Their performance reviews inspire them to improve. Employee Burnout, Part 1: The 5 Main Cause

Only 26% strongly agree Feedback they receive helps them do their work better. Only 50%Clearly know What is expected of them at work. Employee Engagement on the Rise in the U.S.

Organizations with a strong coaching culture report higher Engagement: 60% vs. 48% all other and Revenue growth: 63% vs. 45% all other. Building a Coaching Culture for Increased Employee Engagement

Build skills with leaders, managers, individuals to support peer coaching leaders need to have coaching conversations with the managers who report to them. Everyone needs a coach, and for managers to transition from being a boss to being a coach, they need good feedback, development and recognition from their leader. Employee Engagement on the Rise in the U.S

Natural opportunities to provide more frequent feedback occur during regular team interactions. Managers who teach team members to give each other feedback more often improve information sharing and increase clarity of team expectations, improving team performance. Team Reflexivity and Innovation: The Moderating Role of Team Context

Coaching with compassion creates the possibility for care, empathy, and developing others to become components of its culture. Individuals: Expected to exhibit increased creativity, flexibility, and openness to new ideas and possibilities. Organizations: Translate into greater openness to change, enhanced adaptability to market changes or possibilities for customers or clients. Coaching with Compassion: Inspiring Health, Well- Being, and Development in Organizations

Additional Resources:

Laurel Donnellan's Forbes.com Leadership Strategy Posts on Compassionate Leadership.

Companies that practice corporate social responsibility outperform their S&P 500 peers by eight times. The rise of the social enterprise, 2018 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends

While empathy can lead to fatigue, compassion can increase our resilience and improve our approach to stressful situations. Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley, 2019