The Future of Leadership: Humanity and Compassion

The June 2013 issue of Management Today includes, in a debate about “The Changing Face of the Leader” a paragraph that I believe holds tremendous insight: “Recently, I talked to young people from Indonesia, Brazil and China. I asked them what they expected from the leader of the future and their answers amazed me. The qualities that came up were humanity and compassion. They also wanted leaders who had the ability to put staff at the centre of what they do. They want leaders who aren’t charismatic – they want people who are humble enough to admit they don’t know all the answers.”

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Leena Nair

Leena Nair, Senior Vice President (leadership and organisational development), Unilever

For me this paragraph is a statement packed with such wisdom that I am not going to add anything more. Thoughts welcome on what leadership based around humanity and compassion will look like.

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Support your aspiring and current managers to be empowering and confident leaders with Happy

Happy offers leadership programmes at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7, from new managers/supervisor level all the way up to senior leadership teams and CEOs. These programmes are based on the ideas of trusting your people. They are practical and based on applying what yo’ve learnt. We aim to inspire and ignite change in your organisation, as well as giving you valuable management skills such as business strategy, decision-making, negotiation and project management.

We also offer programmes tailored specifically to people from Global Majority backgrounds. The content is the same, but have been designed to give new and experienced managers the skills they need to navigate organisational culture with a clearer perspective on their own potential, as well as building their confidence and expanding their professional strengths.

Henry Stewart

Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.

Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. “He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business,” explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.

His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.

You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.