How to Heal a Workplace

CHAPTER 3Compassionate Leadership: The key to psychological safety at work

When a new organisation is referred to me, it is often because the leader is new to the workplace and they are experiencing difficulties with the culture. I am regularly called into environments where the toxicity of the culture is extreme. I am constantly amazed at how some businesses continue to function, let alone remain profitable. Alternatively, the leader may have become aware of the magnitude of an emerging problem, for example, if the rate of psychological injury claims has recently escalated. At other times, they reach out because they're aware of a high rate of absenteeism in a particular section, or the profitability of one area of the business has dropped significantly.

In business, we don't spend enough time focused on the prevention of these issues. We wait until it has developed into a really big problem, and then we look to an external consultant to come in and fix it. Although developing a strategy to repair a toxic culture requires a unique skill set, finding the right person to support you as a leader to unpack the complexity of how the situation developed is challenging. Often the leader is embarrassed by the situation because they feel responsible for it, even in cases where they might be new to the role. The more compassionate a leader is, the more they feel some inadequacy in not being able to resolve the problem for themselves.

Get to know your people

Often when a leader is ...