Compassion and Leadership

I’ve been a natural leader my whole life. It’s not something I necessarily want to be… I think you should be reluctant to lead. Somehow I always get put into these positions, and I have absolutely no ego about that fact. Truthfully, half the time I don’t want to lead… I’d rather just be a social loafer and enjoy having a stress-free life.

January 1st, I had officially made the switch to being a Division Lead in my organization. This is something I had spent countless of months really soul searching, trying to determine if this is a burden I would want to bear and if this would be for the greater good, ultimately deciding that this is an experience I should partake in. To me, being a lead is always a privilege… it’s definitely not a right. I think people mistake those two quite often in a sense of entitlement, driven by their ego and extrinsic value to be “seen” by their peers. I would much rather cruise below the radar.

I had one of my closest confidants, someone whom I admire and respect dearly, tell me that our colleague thinks that I am “too nice,” that somehow this niceness isn’t a suitable quality in our line of work.

First of all, “niceness” isn’t a personality trait, it’s a social strategy to get what you want. Gavin de Becker states that “niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning.” Maybe people are nice to get something out of you. Maybe it’s so they can get you to not hate them. Regardless, niceness is self-serving no matter how you slice it. Niceness is performative.

Personally, I can actually give two farts on whether someone likes me. The “People Pleaser” train left a loooooong time ago, so miss me with that bullshit.

But I think this is a good thought experiment on niceness, compassion, and leadership do or do not relate. I think the biggest difference between being nice and being compassionate has to do with boundaries and vulnerability, ultimately. Avoiding hurting someone’s feelings by confronting their behavior may seem nice, but that only hurts you and them in the end… and it lacks any form of vulnerability. The compassionate approach would be to address it in a tactful, and empathetic way whilst also holding clear boundaries and expectations.

One of the very first employees I ever hired ended up absolutely tanking at their job. Chronically late, massively under performing, not responsive to feedback and corrective actions, and exhibited very concerning behavior (like… claiming someone was sneaking into their house while they were at work to drink their milk and drill holes in the walls…). It was time to part ways with this individual, in which I hesitated because it was before Christmas and I thought it wasn’t nice. Because of that decision, they lingered for two months longer floundering even more. The most compassionate thing I could have done was let them go from a job they were clearly not a fit for, give them a severance package, and move on. Biggest lesson learned for me. To this day I hope they are doing well, finding something that better suited them.

Compassion is understanding suffering and wanting to alleviate it. Sometimes, alleviating it means doing things that don’t appear to be nice, but with the understanding that honesty without tact is cruelty. Being nice, isn’t always being honest, being compassionate requires honesty, being honest without considering how to deliver the message means you’re kind of a dick.

I’ll admit, their comment about me being too nice lit a little inferno inside me, not because their opinion really mattered to me but because there are leaders who don’t understand the concept.

*****

A few weeks ago, while processing Blitz’s death, I wrote a blerb about compassion and leadership up on my whiteboard. I didn’t realize I left it up there (in fact, it’s still up there now) until my partner noticed it and asked me if that’s how I really felt.

…Yeah, I’m going to tie this life lesson into my dog dying… I pay $19.95 a month for this blog so I can say whatever I want…

When I put Blitz down, I did so as a leader. I had to make the decision for the both of us. He didn’t want to go. He was in pain, he was restless, breathing became difficult. Coincidentally, my own breathing was labored too, feeling like I had a gorilla fist deep into my chest cavity, squeezing my insides.

It was the morning after Christmas, and I spent the better part of the night listening to him breathing heavily, stirring to get comfortable, or restlessly walk around the house. His cancer had invaded his lungs, making it difficult for him to ever relax and get comfortable. I lay awake at night, dreading the decision I had to make in the morning while hoping Megan would sleep through all of it as to give her as much peace as possible before our world would crumble.

In the morning, we made the calls to various vets trying to get in as soon as possible, but all vets were in surgeries. All three of us sat in the garage with the door open, while Blitz lay on his bed. His breathing still labored, he stared out at the scene around him, smelling the air and at peace. I’d like to think he knew these were the last moments he’d get to experience the sunshine and breeze on his face. The last time he’d get to smell the rain clouds rolling in.

And after 1:00, we made the long drive to his vet.

The room was private; it was the same room we let Miska go years prior. Even in his sickly state, he continued to bark and fight every time he saw another dog. He was scared to go. Once the vet came in, his favorite vet by the way, he got up off the cozy dog bed we had for him, and pressed himself against the door. He wouldn’t let them shave his arm, so we had to hold him and assure him it was all ok…

… but truthfully it wasn’t ok. We were sentencing him to die.

It felt like an eternity waiting for the vet to come in, in which I changed my mind about 30 different times. “Just one more day… just one more walk… just one more evening with him…” but that would have been cruel.

For those of you who have never experienced the pain of putting down your best friend, it goes in two phases. First, they give them a sedative that puts them to sleep, and second, they give them an overdose of the same sedative to arrest their breathing and heart. It’s peaceful, but traumatic never the less. As the sedative began to sink in, I caught his face in my hands so it would’t hit the floor. It was so heavy… both physically and emotionally. I stared into his eyes as I watched the lights go out… they stared back at me with nothing left inside. That image haunts me.

We sat there as the vet continued to listen for his heart beat… he fought so fucking hard to stay with us. I’m certain he knew we were there and could hear us and didn’t want to leave his moms behind. I felt myself holding my breath along with him.

And then he was finally gone. The building shook with thunder as he departed this world; a storm had rolled in during the whole process. It was as if it was his spirit telling us he’s still here (Blitz means “lightning” in German). Whenever the thunder rolls in, and I’m all alone, I speak back to him.

The most compassionate thing I ever did, was to sentence my best friend to die. He didn’t deserve cancer. He was the most innocent, sweet, and loyal creature I ever met. He did deserve to go out surrounded by love. He did deserve to go out without suffering. I was the one who rescued him from the pound. I was the first friendly face he saw after his first owner dumped him in the overnight kennel because he was too much of a coward to face another person.

I was the last person Blitz saw. Megan was the last person he felt.

I never knew what unconditional love really meant until this year, and that dog taught me that as he was the only one to give me unconditional love.

Compassion and leadership… they go hand in hand.