The Compassionate Leadership Interview

Nate Regier PhD is Founder and CEO of Next Element, a global advisory firm specializing in leadership communication, and author of Beyond Drama: Transcending Energy Vampires, Conflict Without Casualties: A Field Guide For Leading With Compassionate Accountability and Seeing People Through.

Nate was a guest on episode 17 of the Compassionate Leadership Interview in February 2020. Since then Nate has been reinventing, rebuilding and realising new opportunities for sharing compassionate accountability.

Nate is launching a new book in July - Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. A year ago, he was planning a second edition of Conflict Without Casualties but his team changed plans in order to respond to the challenges faced by companies coming out of the pandemic.

The book reflects the tension leaders experience between paying attention to relationships and getting things done. Nate’s understanding of compassionate accountability was in its infancy when he wrote Conflict Without Casualties. Since then, his team has developed the three switches of the compassion mindset, a framework for activating the behaviours required within a culture of compassionate accountability.

Nate’s latest book complements the many excellent books on Compassionate Leadership, as the only one with ‘accountability’ in its title. He contends that ‘accountability’ is an essential component of compassion, reflected in the latin root of the word, which means ‘struggle with.’ We live in community with one another and that involves affirming human capability and being accountable to one another.

In the book Nate establishes the relationship between the interactions connecting people, organisational culture, and brand. Culture is fundamentally the sum of the interactions between your people and, as Nate’s friend Bobby Herrera has observed “brand is a lagging indicator of the quality of your culture.”

Part 3 of the book is about implementation. It recognises that you have to “address common systems and processes that reinforce behaviour.” It starts with identifying behavioural norms, and then identifies the functional areas where processes need to reflect those norms. There is a tool for assessing compassion within the culture of an organisation.

Nate maintains that onboarding, performance reviews, promotions, and reward systems in particular need to be aligned with compassionate accountability. Regular in-house training and practice are required to keep the materials alive.

He acknowledges that “everyone is different, everyone comes on board from a different place, and it’s not easy.” Sometimes the assumptions we hold can create barriers for us. The notion that compassion is soft can be prominent among these.

Nate believes compassion can change the world. For example, he believes compassionate accountability is the next evolution of inclusion.

Eleanor Rutter is Assistant Director of Public Health at Sheffield City Council, and Leader of Sheffield’s Compassionate Sheffield programme.

A talented mathematician as a child, Eleanor went to medical school out of a need to seek the approval of other people. Following a complicated pregnancy, she was away from work as a hospital doctor for 18 months, after which she went into public health. She had a further two children and time off through mental ill-health, and the training programme, nominally five years, took her 12 years to complete.

She had a false start in an authority with what she feels was an ‘over-medicalised’ model of public health, but has now found her feet in what she describes as her “dream job.”

In her current role, Eleanor leads the Compassionate Sheffield programme. It is in fulfilment of the city’s 2018 public health objective to ensure that everyone has a dignified death in a place of their choice. She soon found out that there were a lot of compassionate communities doing good work in this area.

Eleanor’s approach is informed by the academic work of Professor Allan Kellehear at the University of Bradford. It recognises dying as a social and spiritual process first and foremost, rather than a medical one. She says that communities and neighbourhoods are best placed to allow people to live the complete lives they choose to value.

Eleanor’s team comprises two community development workers, one of which is an end-of-life doula, a communications officer, a clinical lead, and a programme manager. They are funded by Public Health Sheffield City Council, the ICB (Integrated Care Board), and St Luke’s Hospice. She says the team is an enabler, building capacity, confidence and connections within and between communities.

The main strands of the team’s work to date have been advance care planning, developing training to help people navigate the end of life, building ‘death literacy’ through death cafes, and leading Sheffield’s covid memorial project.

Atul Gawande’s book ‘Being Mortal’ has also had a strong influence on Eleanor’s thinking. She says that by not listening to people and over-medicalising their problems we are at risk of stripping away their humanity.

The next stage for Compassionate Sheffield is to build on the work that people did in the pandemic as compassionate neighbours. In the longer term, Eleanor feels that compassion runs through everything we do and its potential is far greater than transforming the end of life. For example, in Sheffield’s economic anchor organisations many people are in a conversation with Michael West concerning compassionate leadership. She says “I don’t think it’s just a silly pipe dream, this idea of Sheffield becoming a compassionate city in its entirety.”

Sheffield has not intentionally diverged from the Frome Model, which is the basis of Compassionate Communities UK. Rather, Sheffield’s Health and Wellbeing Board, aware of the compassion that was already manifest in Sheffield’s communities, wanted to grow Compassionate Sheffield using an asset-based approach.

As white and middle class, Eleanor is very conscious of her privilege. Therefore, she has a problem with the term ‘achievements’ and feels that often she has just needed to “scoop up the opportunities that were given to me.” Only two or three times in her career has she been faced with making a genuinely tough choice, which on one occasion involved insisting on doing the right thing even though her position was unpopular with some very senior colleagues.

Through therapy Eleanor has learnt to see life as a learning process. One of the things she has learnt is the power of saying sorry and actually meaning it. Eleanor credits therapy as being the experience that has changed her the most. She put herself “heart and soul” into it. It was gruelling, but she is “massively transformed” and no longer driven by self-loathing.

Otherwise,...

Ben Allen is a GP at Birley Health Centre, and Sheffield Clinical Director for Primary Care, with a special interest in elderly medicine and service improvement.

Birley has bucked the national trend in patient satisfaction. Over the past two years while patient satisfaction nationally has declined from 68% to 38%, at Birley it has increased. He compares his initial impressions of Birley to the experience of riding a bike where all the components are high quality but they haven’t been assembled particularly well.

He realised that his first efforts to intervene were merely addressing the symptoms and not the underlying culture, so he started a process of self-education reading books by Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, Brene Brown, Simon Sinek and Nancy Kline for example. This led him to develop three main principles: finding and nurturing potential, team dynamics, and being purpose and values driven.

He observes that “everybody has so much more to them than their professional role and their professional training.” The organisation needs a clear plan for how it is going to bring out the best in staff, including providing a mentor for each person, who has an ongoing day-to-day relationship with the individual.

Most of his thinking on team dynamics draws on the work of Patrick Lencioni. It’s firstly about creating an environment of psychological safety which allows people to voice their best ideas, and confess their mistakes without fear of censure. Secondly its about the quality of debate. Finally, if the first two have been done well, then people should be more prepared to commit to a decision, even if it isn’t the one that they would have made personally.

Ben has done less work on crystallising the purpose of the organisation than he has done on the other two principles, but he thinks that is a question worth asking all stakeholder groups, including patients. He observes that “we can often go to work with our own purpose” and that purpose may conflict with the goals of others. And in the absence of a larger purpose, the aims of individuals can boil down to “getting through the day.” It’s only when you have that overarching purpose that you can ask “How are we doing?”

Ben thinks that the type of leadership that the NHS needs is evolving. At present the principles he has outlined are not as understood and valued as they need to be. The ‘top down’ model is not fit for the complexities of modern healthcare.

Meetings have changed fundamentally at Birley since the start of the improvement programme. They no longer have meetings that are about conveying information, for which an email or whatsapp would do. Instead, team meetings are about engaging people, obtaining ideas, debating issues, and building consensus.

Ben says there’s lots left to do at Birley, but that he really does feel that it’s a self-improving place now. Things Ben would like to see happen going forward include a “blurring of the boundaries between the practice team and the public”, more work on purpose and values, and rotating the leadership of meetings so that younger staff are involved.

Ben feels that with increasing workload and declining staff numbers there is a real risk of changing things “out of desperation to make something different.” In his view, the right question is how do you sustain the people who are currently in primary care, while you train up the next generation of GPs? He also thinks that the nation needs a wider debate about the purpose of the NHS.

In his role as Clinical Director for Sheffield he sees himself helping general practice to thrive. He is still working on the best way to achieve that. One of his approaches has been to get people from general practice with energy and ideas together in order to build solutions.

Recently Ben has read ‘Reinventing Organisations’ by Frederic Laloux. This charts the cultural journey from top down to purpose driven with self-managing...

Emma Clarke is Chief Executive of Weston Park Cancer Charity.

The charity has been in existence for 30 years and supports Weston Park Cancer Centre, which serves the population of South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw. The charity invests in research, facilities and equipment, and also provides care through finance, complementary therapies, and advice.

Emma was born on the Manor estate in Sheffield. She went for a bar job on the same day that she interviewed for her first role in the voluntary sector. Her first job was for a disabled children and young people’s charity in London. She has risen to Chief Executive through a non-conventional route in that she hasn’t been to university.

For Emma, leadership is about being real and about being human. She says “relationships are fundamental.” She aims to foster a culture of belonging, of connection, and of pride in the work of the organisation. She believes that part of compassionate leadership is to give people a sense of autonomy and agency.

She is mindful of ‘the shadow of the leader’ and recognises that her own actions need to be purposeful and sensitive. Part of her role is to make sense for her colleagues of the complex environment in which they operate.

Since assuming the Chief Executive role Emma has steered the charity through Covid, the economic crisis and challenging times in the NHS. She says a crisis “cuts through the noise.” Covid compelled her to rely on her values, and through that she gained confidence in her leadership. Now in the middle of the NHS crisis, she is optimistic about the future: she sees a lot of compassion, and she is surrounded by good people. She is committed to amplifying the good.

As the Chief Executive of a charity, Emma has to work constructively with her trustees. She says that she doesn’t see them as a group of people to report to, but rather a group of peers who are experienced and keen to contribute to the success of the organisation. It’s up to Emma to make the most of the opportunity that they represent, by asking for help, asking questions and encouraging constructive challenge.

Last year Emma introduced Sarah Markham of Calm-in-a-Box, a wellbeing consultancy, to the charity. The team at Weston Park had just finished hybrid working for almost two years and a hard winter loomed. Sarah ran a series of four sessions designed to support the mental health of the team and help them thrive through difficult circumstances. CALM is an acronym that relates to connection, all of me, energy (let me rest), and motivation.

Emma says that often in the voluntary sector people can be so invested in the aims of the organisation that they feel guilty about taking the rest. The CALM programme has given them a language to talk about rest in the context of the work they do.

Navigating the charity through the Covid crisis is Emma’s proudest work-related achievement. It led her to a renewed focus on the most disadvantaged and marginalised of the charity’s clients, as they were affected disproportionately by the pandemic.

Emma says she makes mistakes every day, but the important thing “is not to dwell on it.” She says “mistakes happen, they’re part of everyday life.” Imposter syndrome held her back for a long time, and she has had to work hard to challenge her limiting beliefs.

Emma says an experience that has changed her fundamentally is finding that her and her husband were unable to have children. It’s shaped who she is, but also she feels it is something she needs to be open about, so that other women who aspire to senior roles don’t assume that they have to choose between children and a career. Jodie Day’s ‘Living the Life Unexpected’ helped Emma to come to terms with the situation.

Emma’s self-care regime involves hot yoga, a podcast out on a walk or in the bath, and gardening. And she has joined the National Trust: self-care to her often means learning and putting her brain to use in a...

Melissa Swift is North American Transformation Leader at Mercer and author of Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace.

Melissa says that most of her career has been occupied by work that no-one understands. That’s been a consequence of a preference for working with diverse groups of people to solve complex problems. She currently works at Mercer which is a consultancy that helps with making work better, rewards systems, and wellness.

Melissa believes that one of the aspects of work that is rarely considered is the everyday experience of the employee and how they feel about the work they are doing. In particular, often they can’t relate what they are doing to the goals of the business. Sometimes this is because the relationship is tenuous at best.

Over the years Melissa has tested and learnt what makes a job fun for her. Her current job at Mercer combines intellectual challenge, working in diverse teams, and solving real world problems.

Performative work appears in her book as a major problem area. A lot of the time what we are doing at work is artistic performance - we’re doing it just to show off. If we eliminated this we’d have fewer meetings, time for other things, and a better understanding of who was doing the work that contributes to the outcomes.

She believes that companies could do better by addressing “immigration, migration and incarceration”: recruiting for technical skills and training for language skills rather than vice versa, moving to locations where the talent is, eliminating the biases that militate against hiring formerly incarcerated workers.

She says “data tells us that HR is starving, misdirected, and overloaded.” It is understaffed compared to other functions such as finance, and that means that it is squeezed between ever-increasing demands of the centre and the grass roots. At the same time it is still undertaking a lot of transactional work manually.

Melissa believes that there is a need for candour about the effectiveness of information technology in many businesses. There’s a reluctance on the part of management to go there even though they suspect the truth.

Melissa believes that in order to combat ‘the great resignation’, corporate America needs to manage work populations more thoughtfully. Whilst organisations look to create a consistency of experience for their workers, doing so fails to take into account the differences in prior experience of individuals. In particular organisations are not forging a high quality relationship with under-represented groups.

Melissa contends that most companies could vastly improve their performance by doing less, and performing the high priority tasks better: so much activity doesn’t translate to the bottom line. Much of what we do is driven by what Melissa calls the ‘work anxiety monster.’ This not an employee problem, or even a management problem, it is systemic.

Melissa’s proudest achievement is the impact she has had on other people’s careers. Her biggest mistake was to chose certain roles where she was under-employed when her daughter was younger: she under-estimated the psychological impact of being neither challenged nor valued.

She was inspired on her own journey by Mary Cianni at Korn Ferry, who combines an academically inflected perspective on transformation consultancy with practical wisdom born of experience.

Melissa would recommend Bob Sutton’s ‘The No Asshole Rule’ to aspiring leaders. “No toxicity is non-negotiable” she says.

Her self-care regime consists of getting up at 6:30 for a two-mile run. She has done this every day for over 800 consecutive days now.

Her advice to her 20-year-old self is “Don’t put so much weight on every decision… take the pressure off, you have underlying values and they’re going to come through.”

Mark Berrios-Ayala, Lawyer, is a Board Director of the Gwen S Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association, Regional Vice President of District Three of the Puerto Rican Bar Association of Florida, and author of ‘Let’s Get Sincere’, a book on being an ally.

Allyship is basically helping a resilient or disadvantaged community that is not your own.

There is something of a history of allyship in the Puerto Rican community in the United States. Mark makes reference to The Young Lords, a group that supports neighbourhood empowerment for Puerto Rican and Latinos communities, but also women and LGBTQ.

Mark’s book covers the political, social and spiritual dimensions of allyship. He makes the distinction between de jure, that is officially sanctioned, discrimination and de facto discrimination, which though not officially sanctioned is still real.

Social discrimination is about, for example, being the only person in your workplace that is from your community. In this situation differences can lead to a lack of promotion opportunities or unfair termination. The spiritual dimension concerns the complications that faith can bring to allyship, particularly if the ally or the resilient community are eager to convert others.

Good reasons to be an ally are if you have connections with a particular resilient community, for example friends, a job within the community, an affinity for their culture. Above all, you should have sincere motives and not hidden ones. And you should recognise that an ally cannot fix every problem for a community; for example mentorship does not feed people, mend broken families, provide stability and structure, or provide access to health and education.

Mark lists nine behaviours that are helpful in an ally: courage, compassion, honesty, loyalty, consistency, selflessness, sacrifice, perseverance, and sincerity. There is a degree of overlap between these.

Mark has experienced allyship in his own life, though at the time he may not have recognised it as such: one ally was a teacher who gave him guidance and widened his horizons.

His proudest achievements to date are writing the book, becoming an attorney (five years ago), and sitting on various volunteer bar associations.

In most instances his biggest mistakes have been associated with letting the advice of others override his personal intuition. This is one of the reasons that his book is written as a guide to help people think through the issues and come to their own conclusions rather than a set of rules.

Apart from his own book, Mark would recommend ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie, and ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu. The latter emphasises the importance of knowing yourself and also the obstacles you face, which is quite relevant to allyship.

He would also recommend ‘The Art of Seduction’ by Robert Greene, a book on how to manipulate and use people. If you are a member of a resilient community or an ally to one, it is helpful to understand the behaviour of predators. Mark says “if you want to learn you to defeat an manipulator you have to learn how they manipulate.”

Mark’s self-care regime includes the gym, healthy eating and meditation. Spending time with friends and watching sport are other self-care activities. In addition, being involved in various voluntary organisations provides him with social support, new places to go, and fun.

His advice to his 20-year-old self is quite specific: take a different prep class for law school, be more ambitious in your applications for law school, relax and spend more time on physical exercise in your first year. And his advice to his 25-year-old self would be “you will find a job but it won’t be exactly what you think it is, and that’s OK.”

Darshna Patel is Deputy Head of Workforce Planning for Health Education England, former Vaccine Programme Director for Kingsbury Mandir, and a GP Pharmacist.

The role of Health Education England is to support the delivery of excellent healthcare and healthcare improvement. It does this by ensuring that the workforce of tomorrow is sufficient in number and has the right skills, values, and behaviours.

Darshna qualified as a pharmacist before moving into NHS management. A talk by someone from GlaxoSmithKline inspired her to take up pharmacy. She found that she enjoyed the people and patients dimension of hospital pharmacy, and that in turn led her into general practice, and then a lead role in a Primary Care Network.

More recently she has specialised in workforce planning. She describes her career to date as a “meandering river”, led by her values and interests.

Darshna was named as one of the 50 Leading Lights in the 2021 Kindness and Leadership Awards, partly in recognition of her work in setting up the world’s first vaccination centre in a Hindu temple, The Kingsbury Mandir. She sees kindness as crucial to effective leadership, particularly where collaboration is involved, which means virtually all situations in the ‘social age.’ “It’s about valuing what… everyone brings to the table” she says.

Her outlook is strongly informed by her first-hand experience of positivity and kindness at work. In her first job as a hospital pharmacist, she found herself faced with a myriad of ethical dilemmas. A conversation with a ward matron helped to validate her experience, and uphold her values when she felt most vulnerable.

For Darshna, the three pillars of leading with kindness are: making ripples – small acts that serve to change a culture over time; nurturing psychological safety – discussing the concept, co-creating a list of behaviours that make it real; being authentically kind – challenging your intent.

In her Leading Lights interview, Darshna used Julian Stodd’s expression ‘the Social Age’. He talks about the rise of the rise of “radically connected, and empowered, social communities.” Darshna rejects the idea that she and Julian are being irrationally positive. She has sat with the concept for some time and believes it explains a lot of her experiences in relation to the pace of change and communication.

Darshna is writing a chapter in Amar Rughani and Joanna Bircher’s latest book, “Leadership Hikers.” (Amar Rughani was our guest in episode 33 of this podcast.) The subject will be ‘leading with kindness.’ It has helped her process and reflect on her experiences, particularly at the vaccination centre.

Darshna believes that kindness has a key role to play in navigating the current crisis in the NHS, with particular regard to staff mental health, innovation, retention, and patient wellbeing. She offers the performance of the Kingsbury Mandir as an example of what is possible when one builds an organisation using kindness as a guiding principle.

Darshna sees mistakes as opportunities for learning and growth. If there is one thing she could have done better in recent times, it is looking after herself in order to be able to look after others.

Nowadays, Darshna is more intentional about self-care. She practices yoga, tries to eat well, , and goes for long walks. On her walks she practices gratitude, which she says is the precursor of joy.

Darshna is a practicing Hindu. Her spiritual leader, who sadly departed in 2020, has been a significant inspiration on her journey. He was someone who led a worldwide faith, while maintaining the ability to connect closely with individuals, and he personally embodied kindness.

Darshna recommends Brene Brown’s podcasts ‘Dare to Lead’ and ‘Unlocking Us.’ She has recently read Brene’s book ‘Atlas of the Heart.’ At present she is reading ‘The Gifts of Imperfection.’

Donato Tramuto is a Compassionate Leadership Activist, Global Health Advocate, former CEO of Tivity Health, Founder of the Tramuto Porter Foundation, and author of a second book - ‘The Double Bottom Line: How Compassionate Leaders Captivate Hearts and Deliver Results.’

Donato believes that employees, consumers, and stakeholders are demanding that employers take care of their people, their communities, and the world around them. There’s a strong imperative for employers to focus on their people as well as on profit, and, Donato maintains, by focussing on their people they will actually strengthen their bottom line.

Donato lost most of his hearing when he was eight years of age. And for nearly ten years he was to all intents and purposes deaf. In consequence he was bullied at school and at home. His sister-in-law died in childbirth and his brother and nephew died in a car accident. Two close friends and their child lost their lives on 9/11. The experience of these tragedies has given Donato a degree of insight into the sufferings of others.

Donato believes compassion to be a driver of success: greater employee involvement leads to improved productivity, and better employer and manager wellbeing, and morale.

His book is underpinned by interviews with 41 global leaders, and a survey of 1,500 US employees.

Donato maintains that the idea that compassionate leadership is weak leadership is a myth. His model of compassionate leadership is based on the three ‘t’s of tenderness, trust, and tenacity. In the absence of trust, tough decisions meet with resistance. Gaining trust involves listening to understand.

Donato would propose to dispense with the word “feedback”, which he feels has negative connotations. He prefers “constructive insight” and moreover would always ask permission of the employee before providing it.

Donato says vulnerability is “a significant quality associated with compassionate leadership.” He didn’t embrace it fully until 2014, when he received a Robert F Kennedy “Ripple of Hope Award” and took the opportunity to acknowledge that he was gay and had been in a partnership for 25 years.

He launched two not-for-profit foundations in response to the loss of his friends aboard United flight 175 on 9/11. The Tramuto-Porter Foundation helps disadvantaged children pursue a college education. In 2011 Donato initiated Healthy Villages, which provides medical devices to populations that have compromised access to healthcare.

Donato’s book has been well received in the US, which he believes reflects “a thirst for new leadership” and also the situation of many people as the US emerges from the pandemic, for example loneliness is “the new chronic condition of the 21st Century.”

Donato is engaged in a dialogue with Boston University School of Public Health who are planning to base a curriculum on the book. Like Stephen Trzeciak, a former guest on the Compassionate Leadership Interview, he believes compassion can and should be taught.

Two people who have inspired Donato on his journey are Pope John Paul II and Robert F Kennedy. He says they both demonstrated that life is not about doing great things, but about doing small things that have the capacity to generate great change.

A book that Donato would recommend to aspiring leaders is ‘The Seven-Storey Mountain’ by Thomas Merton.

Donato considers self-care is first and foremost about a sense of fulfilment, which in turn arises from the love, joy, and peace one finds in serving others.

His advice to his 20-year-old self would be “never ever forfeit the opportunity to build a relationship with someone” and “be yourself… it’s a lot easier.”

Sophie Stephenson is a teacher, facilitator and faculty member of Time to Think. (Listeners will recall that I interviewed Nancy Kline, founder of The Thinking Environment®, in episode 39 of the Compassionate Leadership Interview.)

Sophie’s CV includes The Royal Navy, The Prince’s Trust, the Australian wine industry, and a masters in teaching from Melbourne University. After 10 years in Australia, she returned to the UK to start her own business, The Thinking Project. She had spent a lot of time working in large teams, but says that in the Thinking Environment she found ‘her thing.’

Nancy Kline says of Sophie “her delight in life permeates it all.” Sophie says that right from being a little girl she has had “a sense of the sheer wonder of being alive.”

Her LinkedIn profile states “I help brilliant women develop unshakeable confidence so they can make the impact they want without burning themselves out.” For Sophie a big part of confidence is having a really good felt sense our own boundaries: she says boundaries are not what keep people out but what allow us to feel safe enough to let people in. Burnout often results from internalising assumptions that we are not doing enough or we are not enough.

Sophie loves working with women: she believes women are key to helping us transform our ways of working and the world we are living in. “We need that embodiment of compassion, kindness, wisdom, and treating people like they matter.”

Sophie offers a range of courses and retreats. She says it is the people that make them so special. Her courses attract people who are already interested in how they create the conditions for themselves and others around them to thrive. Then she tries to create a place and a space where people can open up to who they are.

Sophie has always written (and read). She sees herself primarily as a teacher, and to her writing is just an alternative way of communicating. She doesn’t see a tension between her courses and her writing. She loves them both.

In Sophie’s December 2021 newsletter she includes a link to the Rosa Guayaba film Sawalmem. It asks “What is one word from your ancestral language which changed your life and that you can offer to the next generation to heal our relationship with the [natural] world?” Her own answer question to that question borrows from the Zen Buddhism tradition: “you have enough (as you are, right now).”

Sophie’s proudest achievement is working for herself for 12 years. It would have been easy to revert to strategy and operations in an organisation, but instead she allowed herself the time to develop a business around what she loved.

A lesson that Sophie has had to learn in her career is not to base her success criteria on the views of others. She now has the confidence to forge her own path, and is more discerning about whose opinion matters to her.

So many people have inspired Sophie on her journey, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Nancy Kline, Brene Brown, Tara Sophia Mohr. The common denominator is that they are all teachers that are working on being vulnerable and authentic. Equally she is inspired by everyone she listens to.

Sophie reads at least a book a week. She recommends that aspiring leaders don’t read books that promise to make you a better leader, but books that might make you a better human. She loves “The Anatomy of Peace” by the Arbinger Institute, also “Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet” by Thich Nhat Hanh. “The Way Out is In” (Plum Village) and “On Being” (Krista Tippett) are two of her favourite podcasts.

Sophie’s tries to live her life as an act of self-care. She doesn’t see self-care as a separate activity. In particular she doesn’t let herself get too busy.

Her advice to her 20-year-old self would be to stop looking outside herself for the things she will only find inside herself.

Dr Sonya Wallbank is People Director for an integrated care system, and part-time senior consultant to the King’s Fund.

Sonya started her career in banking. The birth of her children sparked an interest in psychology, which led on to an undergraduate degree and then a doctorate in psychology. Working alongside the NHS in Leicester she explored restorative approaches that allow you to undertake challenging work whilst looking after your own mental and physical health.

She has spent the last few years in NHS England and improvement supporting staff in the pandemic.

In 2013 Sonya’s work on restorative clinical supervision for NHS Midlands was a finalist in the Nursing Times Awards. This recognised that staff needed an opportunity to think about burn out, and their stress responses, and to increase their compassion satisfaction, and therefore the pleasure theyfound in their job.

Nowadays Sonya works most of her  week in organisational design and improvement for an Integrated Care System and one day for the Kings Fund. She says the ICS work brings a sense of truth and delivery into the King’s Fund work.

She says the work she did during the pandemic is the most significant thing that she has done during her working life. She says NHS England and Improvement “addressed the basic needs first”, namely a hot drink and food at work, and food shopping for home. With knowledge from other countries, they were able to help staff understand what they were facing and think through their response in advance.

They looked at the experience of the person outside as well as in work, and considered what it would be like for health workers going home and having to explain the impact of the pandemic to their partner and children.

2020 brought a fresh understanding into the health service of the critical importance of health and wellbeing. Sonya says that the NHS needs to see money spent on health and wellbeing as an investment in its long-term future, reducing staff absence and turnover. The pandemic has shown that “you can’t be expected to come in and do this work and not be touched by

it.”

In the 2021 NHS Staff Survey 33% of staff said that their trust takes positive action on health and wellbeing. That still leaves two thirds of staff in a situation where their trust is not taking positive action, or at least, if it is they aren’t aware of it. Sonya acknowledges that Trusts are still very wary of being accused of wasting public money, but they need to appreciate that caring for staff is essential to the future of the NHS.

Nonetheless Sonya would agree with Michael West when he says there has been a “sea change” in the leadership approach adopted by the NHS. She says we have reached a peak in the innovation-adoption curve. People can see that collaborative working across boundaries is the future. However, there is a need for an investment in the associated infrastructure.

Sonya believes a compassionate leadership approach is the way forward, but she recognises that it splits people, that there are those who believe it is a softer and less effective option.

Her biggest career mistake was to take on an executive role in an organisation that was ‘broken.’ Ultimately, she could not find enough allies to make the differences she wanted to make.

Dame Emily Lawson is someone who has inspired Sonya on her journey. She led the PPE and vaccination programmes during the pandemic.

Sonya’s favourite book is ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie. She would also recommend ‘Dare to Lead’ by Brene Brown.

Her self-care regime involves surrounding herself with people she loves, doing things that she enjoys, and maintaining a sense of humour. She also tries to keep enough energy in reserve for her home life.

Finally, it is about objectively observing the transient nature of some of the challenges we face.

Her advice to her 20-year-old...