What We Learned About Compassionate Leadership From Bupa

“It is all about the clinicians, and their overall three core needs: autonomy, belonging and contribution. When people have these needs met and feel cared for and supported, they flourish. Flourishing people are a retained workforce, and this is one of the many reasons that Bupa UKI is a great place to work.”

We are coaching Bupa's nurses and clinicians to help them feel supported. It's always a two-way partnership though - here's what Bupa have taught US about the benefits of compassionate leadership.

In our Clinical Career Coaching with Nurses and Physiotherapists at Bupa UKI, the focus is on the individual, and their own professional and personal development, underpinned by life work balance and overall wellbeing.

It is all about them, the clinicians, and their overall three core needs: autonomy, belonging and contribution. When people have these needs met and feel cared for and supported, they flourish. Flourishing people are a retained workforce, and this is one of the many reasons that Bupa UKI is a great place to work.

What has become apparent, is what an inclusive and compassionate culture this working environment is, and I would personally like to thank Rita Trewartha, Head of Clinical Services at Bupa UKI, for inviting us in to have a privileged front seat window, on their world.

I would like to delve further into compassionate leadership to highlight how the components play to individual’s strengths and overall performance.

Creating A Workplace With Wellbeing In Mind

Compassionate leadership helps to create a psychologically safe working environment by encouraging the collective responsibility of teams to promote a culture of learning, risk taking and innovation. For this to be successful and positively impactful, it is accepted that it is ok to get these things wrong but to learn from those mistakes and share experiences.

Our overarching intention in our 1;1 work was to support clinicians to be seen, heard, and valued which taps into those core needs of autonomy, belonging and contribution. Bupa supports this further by offering their staff an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment with monthly 1:1 supervision, and ongoing growth and development opportunities through a range of learning opportunities e.g. apprenticeships.

Supporting Your ‘Work Family’

All positive feelings start with compassion for self, and the focus is on our individual strengths. This is a challenge, in a world intent on focusing on weaknesses. As clinicians we are great at giving to our patients, members, families, and friends, leaving very little for ourselves.

Offering non-judgemental, confidential heart to heart conversations helps to give a wider perspective and cognitive empathy. Being open, present, and responsive further adds to a reduction in stress and increase in job satisfaction, as well as feeling valued and cared for by the people around you. After all, we often spend more time with our work family, than we do with our own families.

In our own 1:1 conversation, an average of 85% of people cited that one of the reasons they loved their work at Bupa was because of their colleagues.

People Matter

One does not need to be a manager to be a compassionate leader, although clearly being a compassionate leader of yourself will greatly influence your success in stepping into a management role if that is your purpose.

In addition to compassion, I would like to look at curiosity, courage, collaboration, and creativity as the driving force behind being a compassionate leader and give examples of how I found this being deployed at Bupa.

Compassion

• To share a member’s story in a clinical team meeting to gain a better understanding of their journey, lived experience and health outcomes.

• Various people accessing and sharing “acts of kindness’ by sending a surprise gift to a member /patient at a challenging time, letting them know they were thinking of them.

• By nominating a colleague for “All Stars” in recognition of them going above and beyond or demonstrating the Bupa values of being Brave, Caring and Responsible.

It is all about the clinicians, and their overall three core needs: autonomy, belonging and contribution. When people have these needs met and feel cared for and supported, they flourish. Flourishing people are a retained workforce, and this is one of the many reasons that Bupa UKI is a great place to work.

Curiosity

• By being open and available to projects that interest them and have a positive impact on the customer or the Team.

• Adjusting hours through overtime to see if this would work with their life/work balance and feeling confident to say, if this is not for them.

• Taking time to look at development courses that resonate with them.

• Seeing their neuro-divergency as a strength and being passionate about championing others.

• To give themselves permission to take some radical self-care i.e., a luxuriant bath.

Courage

• To reach out to a patient when something didn’t go well and utilise this experience as learning opportunity to benefit the Team.

• To present clinical knowledge to potential corporate clients for the first time.

• To make a sometimes-difficult journey into the office despite experiencing levels of pain but to show resilience as the intention of doing so outweighed the suffering.

• To be seen and heard in a presentation when the computer system failed, and they had to ad lib.

Collaboration

• To work with an impartial stranger (me) and be open to possibilities together.

• To continually learn from other departments and share experience.

• To support on onboarding process and mentoring of new colleagues.

• By being open to excellent support on their menopause journey and sharing this with others

• Finding managers and senior managers very engaging and approachable.

• To work from home in isolation but know there was a full team of people at your fingertips ready and willing to give you support.

Creativity

• To re-connect with activities that they have pushed away due to time constraints, that ground them and bring them joy.

• With neuro-divergent thinking, utilising animation to play to strengths in a potential presentation.

• To get creative with time management, planning and boundaries; to transfer these skills across work and life.

• To remember to get out in nature and re-connect with the seasons.

• To be open to the possibility of journaling and the great benefits it brings.

As you can see and feel, all these examples are embodied within compassionate leaders. A compassionate leader flourishes and thrives in their work and in life.