It is 11:40 p.m. and you are rereading the email you sent at 6 p.m.
Not because it was wrong. Because one sentence in it might have sounded sharp.
You have also replayed the meeting where you missed a question, and you have drafted an apology to someone who did not notice anything.
If that sounds familiar, you already know how to be hard on yourself. This article is about the other skill: treating yourself with the same steady, practical care you give your best people, and why that makes you a better leader rather than a softer one.
Why do you talk to yourself in ways you would never talk to your team?
Most leaders we work with can describe, in detail, how they would coach a struggling direct report. They would ask what happened. They would separate the mistake from the person. They would help fix it and keep the relationship intact.
Then they turn the same situation on themselves and the tone changes completely.
The inner voice says: You should have caught that. Everyone else manages fine. What is wrong with you?
Self-compassion is the habit of answering that voice differently. It means taking a supportive, non-judgmental stance toward yourself when things go badly. Researchers studying leaders have a precise name for the work version, leader role self-compassion: a mindset in which you take a kind, supportive view of yourself in relation to the challenges of your leadership role.
Notice what it is not. It is not self-pity. It is not excuse-making. It is not a verdict that your standards were too high.
It is accuracy with warmth, instead of accuracy with a whip.
Isn't this just a softer word for lowering the bar?
That is the objection, and it deserves a straight answer.
Sue Ashford, a management professor at the University of Michigan, has said leaders often overlook self-compassion because they assume it is soft. Her research with colleagues points the other way: on days when leaders were self-compassionate, they were seen as more competent and more civil, and they were better at helping employees with both work and personal issues.
The mechanism is not mysterious. A leader who is busy punishing themselves has less attention left for the person across the table.
The same Michigan-linked research describes something useful about identity. Self-compassion helps leaders stay connected to their role when they hit a hard stretch, instead of concluding that they are not cut out for it. For newer leaders especially, that is a real anchor. The Lanaj and colleagues paper frames it exactly that way.
So the bar does not drop. What changes is what happens after you miss it.
What happens to the leader who cares for everyone except themselves?
This is the part that surprised a lot of people.
We tend to assume that more compassion is always better. A 2026 study in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology surveyed 404 managers and identified five profiles based on how much compassion they directed at others versus themselves.
The group with high compassion for others and low compassion for themselves, which the authors call Self-Critical Caregivers, reported the lowest work-related flourishing. Real flourishing showed up when care for others was matched by care for self.
Read that again if you are the person everyone comes to.
The one who absorbs the team's stress. The one who stays late so nobody else has to. The one whose own needs are always item eleven on a list that stops at ten.
You are not being generous. You may be running on something that has stopped feeling like fuel and started feeling like fumes. We write more about this pattern in why high achievers burn out even when they love what they do.
What does self-compassion look like on an ordinary Tuesday?
Here is a hypothetical, built to illustrate, not a story about a real client.
Picture a director who presents a plan to her executive team and gets a hard question she cannot answer on the spot. She says she will follow up. The meeting ends fine.
The old pattern: three hours of replaying it, a late-night message over-explaining herself, and a lingering sense that she was exposed.
The different pattern is small. She notices the replay starting. She says to herself, plainly, That was a hard question and I did not have the number. That stings. Then she asks the question she would ask a colleague: What do I need to do next? She writes the follow-up, sends it once, and closes the laptop.
Nothing dramatic happened. She was just as responsible and just as exacting. She simply did not add a second injury on top of the first.
That is the whole skill, repeated a few hundred times.
How do you actually practice it?
People search for self-compassion exercises as if there were a secret list. There are a few reliable moves, and most of them take under two minutes. Try them in the order that feels least awkward.
- Name what is happening. Say it in plain words: This is a stressful moment. Naming the difficulty, rather than arguing with it, is a starting point in the seven ways to cultivate self-compassion offered by Mindful, which also suggests pausing to ask what would actually be helpful right now.
- Swap the question. Instead of Why can't I handle this better?, ask What do I need right now? Then answer it with something specific: water, a walk, a five-minute call with a peer, a smaller task list.
- Talk to yourself as you would to your best direct report. Write down the sentence you would say to them in your situation. Then read it to yourself.
- Write it out. A short, structured note to yourself about a hard moment, written in a kind and honest voice, is one of the practices that organizational neuroscience writers point to as a way to build self-kindness as a skill rather than a trait.
- Pair kindness with action. Self-compassion is not only comfort. Leadership coach writing in Harvard Business Review argues that self-compassion makes you a better leader when you combine mental steadiness with clear next steps. Ask what you will do differently and what you will let go of.
- Take the breath before the reply. Before sending the sharp email or walking into the hard conversation, take one slow breath and check whether you are speaking from threat or from judgment.
None of these is a replacement for professional care. If the harshness you feel toward yourself is constant, heavy or tied to painful past experiences, talk with a licensed mental health professional. Coaching is not therapy, and we do not offer medical or trauma treatment.
Is it a skill you can learn, or a personality trait you were born without?
Many leaders decide early that they are simply "not a kind-to-myself person."
The research framing is more hopeful. Writers on organizational neuroscience describe self-kindness as a learnable skill, strengthened through repetition, in the same way you would build any other capability.
That matters for high performers. You already know how to get better at things by practicing them deliberately. You just have not pointed that discipline at the way you treat yourself.
Will it stick when your calendar is full?
Honestly, usually not, unless you give it a place to live.
A study of nurse managers who took part in a mindfulness program, published in the Journal of Holistic Nursing Practice terms as a pre/post design with a three-month follow-up, makes a point that applies well beyond hospitals: these practices are fragile, and without ongoing reinforcement they slide to the bottom of the to-do list. The fix is to treat them like other essential leadership tasks, the way you would treat a high-stakes presentation or an annual review.
In practice, that means:
- Put a two-minute check-in on your calendar after your hardest recurring meeting.
- Pick one trigger, such as closing your laptop, and attach one sentence to it.
- Tell one trusted peer what you are practicing so it does not stay private.
If you want to talk through what would realistically fit your week, we offer a free Clarity Call. It is a conversation, not a pitch deck, and a good place to find out whether private coaching is even the right tool for you.
Does the evidence hold up?
It is fair to ask, so here is what we can point to, with its limits.
A 2021 systematic review of ten intervention studies with 512 participants found that self-compassion training improved work-related well-being, including reduced stress and burnout and greater resilience. The studies were of medium to high methodological quality. The participants were in healthcare-related jobs, so be careful about stretching the findings to every industry.
A 2024 study of unit-based nurse leaders looked at a psychoeducational group program built around resilience, insight, self-compassion and empowerment. It was run with a licensed mental health professional, and the research reported reduced burnout and secondary traumatic stress and higher compassion satisfaction.
Neither of these is a promise for you. They are reasons to take the practice seriously rather than dismissing it as a mood.
How is this different from empathy?
Leaders are often told to be more empathetic. That is half the picture.
Harvard Business Review's piece on moving from empathy to compassion separates the two: empathy is awareness of someone's struggle, while compassion adds a desire to help. The suggested shift is from "I feel you" to "I feel you, and what support do you need?"
Turn that inward and you have the whole idea. I feel this, and what support do I need?
An empathic leader without self-compassion simply soaks up more pain. A compassionate one, who includes themselves, can stay in the room.
What do we see in leaders who cannot stop?
We built Desert Roots Wellness around a pattern we have lived and seen. Founders Samka Keranovic and Tyler LaBarge both have personal experience with high-stakes leadership and corporate burnout, and that shapes how we coach.
The leaders who find us rarely look like they are struggling. They are competent, trusted and often admired. Quietly, though, the work became the life, and their sense of worth went along with it.
Self-compassion is often the first thing they dismiss, because it sounds like a luxury. We think it is closer to maintenance. If you treat every mistake as proof that you are failing, your nervous system stays on alert, and decisions get narrower and more defensive.
We use neuroscience and trauma-informed frameworks, which means we pay attention to what stress is doing in the body and to what is under the habit, not just to the habit. We do not treat trauma or give medical advice. We help you notice where you outsourced your sense of well-being to performance, and rebuild self-trust in decisions from there.
Our view is simple. Self-compassion is not the opposite of high standards. It is what makes high standards survivable.
And for most leaders, it will not come from one big insight. It will come from the small, repeated choice to speak to yourself like someone worth keeping on the team.
— Samka
Where can you start if you want support?
If you want to begin on your own, the Clarity Kit is $37 and the Boundary Starter Pack is $27, both one-time purchases. If you would rather work with a coach one-on-one, a single coaching session is $300, and the 90-Day Coaching Package is $2,500, both listed on the same page.
If you lead a team and want to build this into how the group works, our burnout prevention training for leaders and teams is the place to ask. It has no published price.
FAQ
How do you practice self-compassion as a leader?
Start with one moment a day when you usually criticize yourself. Name what happened, ask what you need, and take one concrete next step. Repeat it until it is automatic, and attach it to something already on your calendar so it does not get dropped.
Is self-compassion at work a sign of weakness?
The research suggests the opposite. In the University of Michigan work, leaders on self-compassionate days were seen as more competent and more civil by others. Holding yourself accountable and treating yourself with respect are not in conflict.
Can self-compassion reduce burnout?
Evidence from healthcare-related workers suggests it can help. The 2021 systematic review found reductions in stress and burnout across ten intervention studies. Burnout also has causes in workload and culture, so self-compassion is one part of the answer. If you are struggling with your health, see a qualified professional.
What is the difference between empathy and compassion for leaders?
Empathy is recognizing what another person feels. Compassion adds the wish to help, and the action that follows. For leaders, Harvard Business Review suggests asking what support someone needs, then asking the same of yourself.
Sources
- The Five Faces of Compassion, International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology (2026)
- Lanaj et al., When leader self-care begets other care (2021)
- University of Michigan: Self-compassion helps leaders and their workers
- Mindful: 7 Ways for Leaders to Cultivate Self-Compassion
- Fisher College of Business: It's a Good Time to be Kind
- Harvard Business Review: Self-Compassion Will Make You a Better Leader
- Ceravolo and Raines: The Impact of a Mindfulness Intervention for Nurse Managers
- Effects of Self-Compassion Training on Work-Related Well-Being: A Systematic Review
- Frontiers in Organizational Psychology: unit-based nurse leader program (2024)
- Harvard Business Review: Effective Leaders Move Beyond Empathy to Compassion
Tonight, the email can stay sent.