Compassionate leadership is an essential leadership style for a rapidly changing tech-driven workforce

Abstract

The nature of work, as we know, has evolved through generational change and intensified digital transformation in the workplace. Renewed interest in leadership models and capabilities that prioritise employee well-being, empathy and trust are in the firing line. Compassionate Leaders (CL) has been identified as a relational and humanistic approach to leadership as a positive alternative to traditional, performance-driven leadership models. While identified as crucial to the modern work era, CL remains scarcely researched, especially within African and emerging technological markets. This study examines how CL is experienced, perceived, and practised in rapidly changing tech-driven environments within South Africa. Specific focus was placed on the cultural contexts, such as the Ubuntu Philosophy and its influence on leadership culture, and its tie-in with CL. The study was guided by an interpretivist, qualitative approach and data were collected through semi-structured interviews, which were manually analysed and sorted thematically. The findings revealed that compassion in leadership manifests through modelling of behaviour, relational awareness, and emotional support. The findings also highlight that providing compassion is constrained by organisational structures such as performance demands, systemic inequality and technostressors. The study makes a positive contribution to the localisation of Compassionate Leadership Theory (CLT) through culturally practised compassion in South African workplaces. It extends the scholarly literature of compassion and organisational sustainability by confirming the need for balance in the follow-through of enacted compassion and organisational demands and efficiency.