Experience of compassionate (or not) leadership

I have had many different people take the role of a leader in my life so far and you can always tell a good/compassionate leader from the rest. The one that comes to mind most immediately is an old school teacher who has always been very concerned about how everyone around him is doing, often striving to help them improve at his own detriment. He is the sort of character who would take time of out his day to go out to lunch with you if you bumped into him on the street out of the blue. Since then, I have guaged the success of leader against the compassion and empathy of this man. He's pretty treat. Its safe to say very few have been comparable to him in terms of his leadership.

Multiplying goodness meditation

I found this type of meditation quite difficult. I think because goodness is such an abstract idea. Even when trying to imagine goodness as a lightforce I struggled to find this a tangible idea. I think my idea of goodness comes in the form of well intentioned actions rather than an innate force of character.

Tonglen meditation

The Tonglen medititation was equally difficult for me to get my head around for similar reasons to the above. Although pain and suffering were slightly more easy to picture in terms of their feelings as it was easy to associate particular acts with them - such as famine or injury. I think I am far too novice to feel the full effects however, I see more benefit in this exercise than the above.

SCARF model - Phase 0

Status

In terms of status within the phase zero cohort at the moment I'm feeling like I'm totally among equals which is pretty cool. Everyone is learning together and no one is being difficult or snobish which is really awesome. Its awesome to be able to learn along side some nice people!

Certainty

Feeling pretty certain that I will be able to pick things up pretty quickly and I am feeling super comfortable that this will be a worthwhile experience.

Autonomy

feeling really in control and capable of asking for any help that I might need. I am feeling super confident in the EDA environment.

Relatedness

Feeling super comfortable with everyone and feel that everyone is definitely not a 'foe'! Everyone's so nice and ready to help out.

Fairness

Feeling happy that everyone is getting their fairshare of help and encouragement no matter how busy we all are.

Difficult conversation

I recently had a difficult conversation with my boss about leaving in time for EDA. It came at a time when the majority of the staff were leaving and everyone was getting pretty stressed. In the end I just went for it one day and that was a great course of action. I sat down and told the boss straight up that I was having to leave and it went really well! This year I have left two jobs and feel I have improved already in terms of my approach.