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Notes on Resilience

121: The Business Case for Compassion, with Cynthia Pong

Apr 23, 2025
32:43

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What happens when a leader admits they've made a mistake? 

This vulnerability forms the bedrock of trust in modern organizations. And trust is in critically short supply. The psychological contract between employers and employees has fundamentally fractured, leaving many professionals feeling disposable rather than valued.

In this conversation with executive coach Cynthia Pong, we explore how compassionate leadership creates the psychological safety necessary for high-performing teams and the need to invest in measuring and developing compassion as a core competency. We discuss practical metrics for tracking psychological safety (like the number and types of questions team members feel comfortable asking) and examine how organizations can rebuild trust in small, meaningful steps.

The stakes couldn't be higher. As Cynthia notes, companies will lose out on A++ talent, who will go to a competitor because the competitor has a better culture. With five generations in today's workplace and values-driven Gen Z employees entering the workforce, compassionate leadership is essential for organizational survival.

Cynthia Pong, JD, is an award-winning executive coach and speaker who empowers women of color leaders to advance their careers into positions of power. She is Founder and CEO of Embrace Change, working with a team to provide specialized coaching and training programs for high-performing women of color up to the C-suite. She is the author of the book Don’t Stay in Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color.

You can learn more about her company on the website or LinkedIn.

Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.

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Producer / Editor: Neel Panji

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#trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor

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