South East London Integrated Care System (SEL ICS) RISE line management programme. 

Module 5: Compassionate leadership

Welcome to this course on compassionate leadership, the fifth instalment of the South East London Integrated Care System (SEL ICS) line management programme.

Compassionate leadership means leading with empathy, care and a focus on the wellbeing of your team. This is especially relevant in health and care settings, where demand can be incredibly high, while staff resources – such as time, energy and emotional bandwidth – often run low. Modelling compassion will help line managers build on our previous module topics, including building positive team dynamics and being fair, to foster a supportive, sustainable workplace.

We'll explore what it means to lead with compassion in your team. We'll start by looking at empathetic listening – the skill of actively understanding a person’s emotions and situation. We'll then practise how to hold compassionate conversations, building on our empathy toolkit to take meaningful action to support positive outcomes. Then lastly we'll tackle some of the key challenges to implementing these principles in health and care organisations to ensure an effective, yet compassionate leadership approach.   

By the end of this module, you should be able to:
  • describe compassionate leadership and its role in prioritising staff wellbeing and creating an engaged, high-performing team
  • identify the four behaviours of compassionate leadership and explain how they can help guide managers
  • describe and apply empathetic listening skills, and explain the importance of these in building compassion
  • describe and apply compassionate conversation skills to actively support your team members
  • describe common barriers to compassion in health and care, and explain how modelling 'Wise Compassion' can help you support your team alongside organisational goals.
This module should take you about 30 minutes to complete.