Dear MDECOE Community,
During this challenging time of the Covid-19 and anti-Black crises, we look to our leaders. Leaders can act as influential role models for compassion and caring during crises. Nicola Chen Nielsen, Gemma D’Auria, and Sasha Zolley identify four leadership qualities in their article Tuning in and turning outward: Cultivating compassionate leadership in a crisis “that help leaders find the compassionate voice to manage in crisis and shepherd their organization into a post-crisis next normal. Start by creating space to attain a keener awareness of what is going on within and around you. Be bold in exhibiting vulnerability by lowering your guard and confronting what is unfolding. Demonstrate empathy to better tap the emotions others are feeling, and act with compassion to make individuals and groups feel genuinely cared for. Cultivate these qualities in a balanced way by first tuning inward to understand and integrate your own emotions and fears, and then turning outward to alleviate pain, support others, and, over time, enable people and the business to recover.” In our college, we are all leaders in some manner.
And I have seen so much compassion demonstrated by those in our college in the last months. So continue to tune in to how you are doing, and then keep turning out that compassionate leader in you to those in your area who look to you for how to move forward.
Thanks go to Kim Goldberg-Roth, Executive Director of Strength United, for sharing this article, which can be found below:
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/tuning-in-turning-outward-cultivating-compassionate-leadership-in-a-crisis
For a list of other self-care options, please see our COE self-care website for self-care resources for faculty, staff, and COE students at:
https://www.csun.edu/eisner-education/self-care/articles-information-self-care
May we all continue to be compassionate leaders!
Warmly,
Shari and Josh