You may see yourself as an empathetic person, but are you compassionate? What is the difference, you might ask?
The difference is that an empathetic person will tell someone they feel for them because of the experience they are going through and leave it at that. The compassionate person will also express that empathy but will take it further—they will act on it by helping the person experiencing the difficulty, according to Donato Tramuto, founder of the TramutoPorter Foundation and Health eVillages.
Tramuto will be the opening keynoter at the Club Industry Executive Summit Oct. 17-19 at the Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel in Chicago.
His book, “The Double Bottom Line: How Compassionate Leaders Captivate Hearts and Deliver Results,” will be distributed to all attendees at the event.
Several studies show that leading with compassion creates a stronger connection with your employees, thereby building greater loyalty. And those results often lead to a more profitable bottom line.
Tramuto’s keynote at the Club Industry Executive Summit will be inspirational and offer real takeaways for how to build your compassion and translate that to higher revenue.
But what if you can’t wait until October to start working on developing your compassionate leadership skills?
Tramuto’s foundation helped to launch the first National Compassionate Leadership Week, which will always be held the second full week of September. (The reason for choosing this week will become clear when you hear Tramuto offer his keynote address.)
National Compassionate Leadership Week celebrates compassionate leaders by bringing attention to the proven benefits of compassionate leadership through use of empathy in action to garner the greatest impact. It shows through their own example that it is possible to be compassionate and deliver strong results at the same time. In fact, leading with compassion produces stronger results whether it be in business, education, politics or in our own families and communities, according to the organization.
In coordination with the first-ever National Compassionate Leadership Week, Tramuto encourages leaders everywhere to start with simple actions and adopt more as you see the positive results.
Some of those actions at your business could include:
- Offer and attend training to learn new skills that support a compassionate workplace.
- Implement regular check-ins with your teams to ask about how they're doing and take the time to listen to their stories either individually or at the start of a meeting. This simple act has been shown to have a significant positive impact.
- Find opportunities to celebrate employees when they do something well, and especially when they do something compassionate for their coworkers. This reinforces compassionate values.
- Schedule workshops for employees that support elements of a compassionate workplace.
- Take extra time to really listen to employees and colleagues. Ask how you can support them. Just feeling seen and heard creates connections and a sense of community.
Actions beyond the workplace could include:
- Reach out to someone you haven't talked with in a while to find out how they're doing.
- Access the Boston University Compassionate Leadership Resource Library.
- Look for opportunities to offer acts of compassion. If you're not sure where to start, ask a church or community leader about someone who needs a hand or a friend.
- Share your ideas and examples of compassionate acts at #nationalcompassionateleadershipweek.
In 2023, The TramutoPorter Foundation will launch an online certificate course on compassionate leadership in partnership with Boston University and will launch a new annual Compassionate Leadership Award for organizations that exemplify compassionate work.
You’ll get a jump start on that by coming to hear Tramuto’s keynote address on the morning of Oct. 18 at the Club Industry Executive Summit.
View the full agenda for the event by going here.
Register by going here.