Awakening Compassion in Managers—a New Emotional Skills Intervention to Improve Managerial Compassion

• Published in: Journal of business and psychology 2021-12, Vol.36 (6), p.1095-1108
• Main Authors: Paakkanen, Miia, Martela, Frank, Hakanen, Jari, Uusitalo, Lotta, Pessi, Anne
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Business and Management; Community and Environmental Psychology; Compassion; Emotional intelligence; Industrial and Organizational Psychology; Intervention; Managerial skills; Original Paper; Personality and Social Psychology; Psychology; Skills; Social Sciences; Soft skills
• ISSN: 0889-3268; 1573-353X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10869-020-09723-2

Compassion is in high demand within organizational research, with important implications for leadership, well-being, and productivity. However, thus far only meditation-based interventions have been implemented to increase compassion in organizations. Our aim was to explore whether compassion could be increased among managers through improving their emotional skills. We implemented a quasi-randomized controlled trial with pre-test and post-test design of a new emotional skills cultivation training among managers, measuring the treatment group ( N  = 68), the control group ( N  = 90), and their followers ( N  = 85 and N  = 72). Compared to the control group, the managers exhibited significantly increased sense of emotional skills, with some evidence for an improved sense of compassion. We also found that emotional skills mediated the impact of participating in the intervention group and compassion. Additionally, servant leadership behaviors in the intervention group improved following the intervention. These results demonstrate that instead of being something innate, compassion is a skill that can be increased through training emotional skills, with observable benefits for the organization.