Want Less Anxiety? Practice Compassionate Management With your Bad Boss

There’s a new movement afoot, “compassionate management,” headed by such business honchos, according to Bronwyn Fryer, as “eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Bill Ford (yes, that Bill Ford), Karen May (VP of Talent at Google), and Linked In CEO Jeff Weiner top the bill. At TED, Karen Armstrongʼs talk about reviving the Golden Rule won the TED prize in 2009 and has given rise to a Charter for Compassion  signed by nearly 100,000 people…

At Wisdom 2.0, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner told the audience …[Compassion] requires spending the time to walk in someone elseʼs shoes — to understand what kind of baggage that person is bringing to work; what kinds of stresses sheʼs under; what her strengths and weaknesses are. In high-pressure environments, such a time investment is anathema to most of us. But such an investment is analogous to the work of a carpenter who carefully measures a piece of wood three times before cutting once: spending such “compassion time” with an employee, Weiner insists, pays off in that personʼs much greater efficiency, productivity and effectiveness (and obviates later regrets).”

How does compassion help you deal with a Bad Boss? Simple: putting yourself in someone else’s shoes almost immediately reduces the amount of anxiety and stress you feel around your Bad Boss.

When you feel less anxious and stressed, more of your brain power is available to focus on solutions, on tools and techniques such as those recommended in “Got A Bad Boss?” On advancing your career, rather than bemoaning your Bad Boss misery.

Don’t take my word for it: Itʼs not just altruism: as it turns out, companies that practice conscious capitalism perform ten times better than companies that donʼt.

You are your own “company.” As you practice personal “conscious capitalism” you too will perform better.