Leadership is hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness in getting the job done? A global pandemic, economic volatility, natural disasters, civil and political unrest. From New York to Barcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is coming apart. Through it all, our human spirit is being tested. Now more than ever, it's imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion. But in hard times like these, leaders need to make hard decisions-deliver negative feedback, make difficult choices that disappoint people, and in some cases lay people off. How do you do the hard things that come with the responsibility of leadership while remaining a good human being and bringing out the best in others? Most people think we have to make a binary choice between being a good human being and being a tough, effective leader. But this is a false dichotomy. Being human and doing what needs to be done are not mutually exclusive. In truth, doing hard things and making difficult decisions is often the most compassionate thing to do. As founder and CEO of Potential Project, Rasmus Hougaard and his longtime coauthor, Jacqueline Carter, show in this powerful, practical book, you must always balance caring for your people with leadership wisdom and effectiveness. Using data from thousands of leaders, employees, and companies in nearly a hundred countries, the authors find that when leaders bring the right balance of compassion and wisdom to the job, they foster much higher levels of employee engagement, performance, loyalty, and well-being in their people. With rich examples from Netflix, IKEA, Unilever, and many other global companies, as well as practical tools and advice for leaders and managers at any level, Compassionate Leadership is your indispensable guide to doing the hard work of leadership in a human way.

Most leaders think they're effective at motivating their employees, but study after study shows that employees are more disengaged and uninspired than ever. The solution lies not in more management training or fun off-sites but in looking within--into the mind of the leader. Based on their years-long research and practice, Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, of the Potential Project, have conclusively found that three qualities stand out as being foundational for leaders today: mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion--what they call the MSC Leadership Mind, the ideal mind of the leader.

Mindfulness addresses the distractedness that kills our focus, stunts our productivity, and makes us action-addicted multitaskers. Selflessness addresses the general lack of fulfillment in work life by helping us--and the people we lead--find true happiness and meaning. And compassion addresses today's social disintegration by enhancing true human connections, followership, and engagement.

While some think these traits are innate, Hougaard and Carter, together with hundreds of their associates working with thousands of leaders around the world, have developed a system to help leaders of all kinds learn and cultivate the MSC Leadership Mind. By addressing their own needs first, then those of their people, and finally the culture of their organization, every leader can learn to embody what makes for great leadership in today's challenging organizational environment.

Based on surveys of more than 35,000 leaders, interviews of more than 200 C-suite executives, and an extensive study of evidence-based research in leadership, and filled with inspiring stories and practical step-by-step ideas for adopting new practices, The Mind of the Leader has the potential to change how you lead yourself and your people and to transform your organization.

The importance of achieving focus goes well beyond your own productivity. Deep focus allows you to lead others successfully, find clarity amid uncertainty, and heighten your sense of professional fulfillment.

Yet the forces that challenge sustained focus range from dinging phones to office politics to life's everyday worries. This book explains how to strengthen your ability to focus, manage your team's attention, and break the cycle of distraction.

This volume includes the work of:

- Daniel Goleman

- Heidi Grant

- Amy Jen Su

- Rasmus Hougaard

HOW TO BE HUMAN AT WORK.

The HBR Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master.

Become a mindful listener at work. Listening is a critical skill that leaders and managers often take for granted. By learning to listen mindfully, you can keep your employees more engaged, foster the discovery of new ideas, and hear what you need to hear in a discussion rather than what you expect to hear. The book will teach you what great listeners do, how to stay fully present in challenging conversations, and how empathic listening can help others learn and grow. This volume includes the work of: Peter Bregman Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins How to be human at work. The HBR Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master.

Researchers have found that the accelerated pace of modern office life is taking its toll on productivity, employee engagement, creativity and well-being. Faced with a relentless flood of information and distractions, our brains try to process everything at once increasing our stress, decreasing our effectiveness and negatively impacting our performance. Ironically, we have become too overworked, unfocused, and busy to stop and ask ourselves the most important question: What can we do to break the cycle of being constantly under pressure, always-on, overloaded with information and in environments filled with distractions? Do we need to accept this as the new workplace reality and continue to survive rather than thrive in modern day work environments? Thankfully, the answer is no. In their new book, ONE SECOND AHEAD: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness (Palgrave Macmillan; November 2015), Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter, and Gillian Coutts demonstrate that it is possible to train the brain to respond differently to today's constant pressures and distraction. All it takes is one second. They propose that we need to learn to work differently so we are more focused, calm and have less clutter in our mind so we can better manage our time and attention. What if we could hit the 'pause' button on our day, step back, and meet challenges with a sense of clarity and purpose? And what if there was a way not just of 'getting things done,' but ensuring that what does get done are the right things to do? Based on a program in corporate mindfulness designed by Hougaard and the partners of The Potential Project, One Second Ahead provides practical tools and techniques as well as real-world examples and lessons from organizations that have implemented mindfulness on a large scale. Thoroughly tested in a diverse range of industries, this program has resulted in measurable increases in productivity, effectiveness, and job satisfaction. With the new mindset proposed in One Second Ahead, readers will be able to put an end to ineffective multitasking, unproductive meetings, poor communication, and other unhealthy workplace behaviors by applying mindfulness to every day work life. All too often, we think that being mindful requires engaging in a special activity like meditation or yoga. Sure, these activities are beneficial and important to train the mind, but there are many simple things we can do to be mindful all day long. One Second Ahead is a handbook for more mindful work that offers: Practical, easy to apply, tools and techniques to enhance performance and effectiveness in day to day work activities such as meetings, emails, communication, planning, creativity and more Real-world stories of how mindfulness changed the workdays of leaders and front line employees Tips for cultivating mental strategies and routines that can reduce clutter, increase focus, and rewire your brain to enhance presence, patience, kindness and other valuable mind states Simple yet detailed step-by-step instructions for a more systematic approach to mindfulness training to enhance focus and awareness Guidelines for a 10-minute-per-day mindfulness program that can reshape your life both at work and at home; A reproducible planning worksheet and further resources in the Appendix. One Second Ahead can transform daily work life by helping individuals and teams realize more of their potential through greater focus and awareness. The tools and techniques in this book can transform individual and organizational performance one mind at a time.

The importance of achieving focus goes well beyond your own productivity. Deep focus allows you to lead others successfully, find clarity amid uncertainty, and heighten your sense of professional fulfillment. Yet the forces that challenge sustained focus range from dinging phones to office politics to life's everyday worries. This book explains how to strengthen your ability to focus, manage your team's attention, and break the cycle of distraction. This volume includes the work of: Daniel Goleman Heidi Grant Amy Jen Su Rasmus Hougaard HOW TO BE HUMAN AT WORK. The HBR Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master.

Become a mindful listener at work. Listening is a critical skill that leaders and managers often take for granted. By learning to listen mindfully, you can keep your employees more engaged, foster the discovery of new ideas, and hear what you need to hear in a discussion rather than what you expect to hear. The book will teach you what great listeners do, how to stay fully present in challenging conversations, and how empathic listening can help others learn and grow. This volume includes the work of: Peter Bregman Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins How to be human at work. The HBR Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master.