LAURA "COMPASSION"TOBIN..."Obviously!!"

Ananda(Secretary to Buddha): Is it true to say that cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is part of our practice?
Buddha replied: No!It would be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is all of our practice.
Compassion is a profound human emotion prompted by feelings for others.Thus, is considered in major religious traditions as amongst the greatest of virtues.The Hindu tradition defines Daya as one of the three central virtues in a person..others being charity,and self-control.The muslims ascribe mercy and compassion,Rahman and Rahim as foremost among god's attributes.In Jews tradition God is the compassionate or Rehmana.
Asked for summary of Jewish Religion in most concise terms,Hillel replied(reputedly while standing on one leg)
"That which is hateful to you,do not do to your fellow.That is the whole Torah.The rest is explanation: go and learn".
But what of compassion in leaders in industry?Does not this inhibit a leader from making tough though imperative business calls?
The answer is an emphatic No!
Virtues do not entertain a relationship with other qualities as in a pull and push cart.You gain a step and lose two...Neither does this come at the cost of decisiveness for e.g....
Thank lord no zero sum games here in all this!
Thus a leader could be compassionate and also take a tough stance.Infact the substance mix one would expect from a leader should have these essential ingradients firmly entrenched in the persona.
Woebetide a community whose leaders lack this virtue.
Chairman Mao not only crippled his country's social orders under the garb of cultural revolution but seeded the motivation to divide a wedge betwen people of a thriving community by suggesting to East Germany's leader,Walter Ulbricht, "to build a wall " when the answer was to engage!
His support for Pol Pot and the horrendous Khmer Rouge the masters of a slave dynasty in Cambodia is recorded in blood and black in all historical chants and journals.
And we would not like to venture into Feuhrer or Frederick..or Stalin or Mussolini !!
So is it for wrong reasons we need to establish Compassion as an essential virtue? I would say why not?
Uncompassionate leaders would be cynical...there is a secondary traumatic stress disorder called Compassion Fatigue.The characters exhibit symptoms including hopelessness,a decrease in experience of pleasure,constant stress and anxiety and a pervasive negative attitude.
Laura"Compassion"Tobin, ironically named thus in the fictional Dr Who , expressed herself mostly with a response "Obviously"to any comment or enquiry!!
Surely not the cynicist you would like to see as a leader.
Compassion gives the connectivity and access reach any leader needs to positively influence groups.Leadership is about influencing.And a young leader needs to carry this substance virtue in his/her persona and treasure it.
This defines him and his character to his team.
For without this he would be boggled like Alice was when she grew suddenly(in height) after mistakenly consuming the tempting brew.
Looking at her now distanced shoes she pitied:"I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you:You must manage the best way you can-"
Definitely not the engaging,involved leader one would like to see!!

Lessons In Leadership..

"The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. they have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. either case is a failure of leadership"

If this were a litmus test, the majority of leaders would fail. One, they build so many barriers to upward communication that the very idea of someone lower in the hierarchy looking up to the leader for help is ludicrous. Two, the corporate culture they foster often defines asking for help as a weakness or failure, so people cover up their gaps, and the organization suffers accordingly. Real leaders make themselves accessible and available.

-General Colin Powell (Chairman (Retd.), Joint Chiefs of Staff

Leaders of Substance!!....... Robert E. Lee

"He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward."

—Benjamin Harvey Hill of Georgia referring to Robert Edward Lee during an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia on February 18, 1874