Introduction

Leadership by definition is an activity involving groups, it is not a solitary activity and at its most basic leaders have to have followers. In management and organisational studies the concept of leadership and associated attributes creates a great deal of interest and much has been written about its practice, its context, its socio-cultural dimensions and its psychological aspects. Leadership has been keenly observed in the public arena and therefore is tangential in most writings concerned with public affairs. The majority of this exploration has attempted to find patterns or connections between leaders and their application of leadership in the organisational environment and it is therefore not surprising to find studies on traits, characteristics or different ‘models’ of leadership emerging over time. However, rather than adopt the more traditional approach to leadership studies this paper explores existing published work and analysing them to see if they applied in practice the use of concept attributes which are valued by individuals and societal groups; namely compassion and kindness. Both can be defined as attributes of, and encapsulated within, the concept of grace. In this paper grace is defined as doing ‘good’ (to oneself and to society at large) and demonstrating kindness to others. There are a number of different definitions of grace including beauty, elegance, charm or good manners, honourable titles, indulgent lifestyle or more commonly a gift bestowed by God to save man from a sinful judgement. However, we are particularly interested in the definition of grace as applied in leadership practice, through doing good to others and demonstrating kindness in a pragmatic environment requiring decision-making and judgement. In this context grace involves showing compassion, kindness, goodwill, generosity and beneficence towards stakeholders and society.

Grace cannot be defined without including compassion as an attribute of grace itself. Within religion compassion as a characteristic of leadership is surprisingly given little attention. From Christianity, starting with Paul, early Church principles (Catholicism) and all the way to Luther and Calvin, man is viewed as essentially sinful and only saved through the concept of grace (a gift bestowed by God) although other scholars from Pelagius in the fifth century to Robinson (1963), argue for the idea that humans can have influence over their own behaviours towards others (through compassionate and kind acts) in order to achieve God’s grace. An example for modern financial leaders who are perceived by many in the media and the public as poor public leaders may be found in the New Testament book of Acts (4:33) (Holy Bible (2006) version) where the apostles demonstrate compassion and support in the community through the sharing of wealth and resources (which had an added benefit as “much grace was upon them”). The book of Peter (3:8) exhorts community members to be compassionate whilst in Hebrews (13) the faithful are reminded to support the community and each other and not be taken in by ceremonial displays but instead be graceful (13:9) through sharing knowledge and resources, kindness and practising tolerance of others whilst leaders are instructed to “watch over” those they lead (13:17).

The Koran (1956) cites compassion throughout the text and continues the words first found in the Exordium “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful” throughout the holy book. In the Light (24:6–11 and 24:19–23) God’s grace and compassion are revealed through members of the community being tolerant of each other, being honest witness and demonstrated by those with wealth and honour sharing what they have, rather than withholding from those in need. For the Muslim faith, leadership is not only seen as a great responsibility and should be implemented with kindness, following God’s compassion, but also by being consistent in judgement, forgiveness and upholding community and moral standards.

Buddhism also places great emphasis on compassion, seeing it as “the wish-fulfilling jewel” and having its own “clarity of reasoning” (Rinpoche 1992, p. 188). In Buddhism compassion is seen as an almost empathetic act (The Dalai Lama 2001) with an emphasis on dedicating oneself to others and helping others before putting ones’ own needs first. Such reflection and meditation on behaviour towards others provides the enlightenment sought by Buddhist practitioners when learning how to understand and control one’s own ego. Leadership and personal responsibility are expected in areas of relationships and the wellbeing of others and recognising kindness in both oneself and in others through everyday interactions (Dalai Lama 2001, Chap. 7).

An alternative and possibly a more appropriate picture of recent societal and commercial leaders was forwarded by Machievalli (1988) (translated). His views on compassion, unsurprisingly perhaps, appear to reflect the contemporary media view of public and commercial leaders. He argued that parsimony, cruelty and fear were on balance more effective leadership traits than generosity and compassion. He based this logic on his points that individual reputation can be enhanced by keeping one’s own wealth rather than sharing it and taking wealth from a few competitors rather than talking wealth from the many under one’s leadership. In this way an individual can generate a reputation as one that was neither generous nor parsimonious because the many received nothing but also lost nothing whilst the few who lost would have a minority voice or be unable to confront the leader. Equally Machiavelli accepted that whilst compassion was a good characteristic of a leader it did no harm to occasionally select a few of one’s own followers and inflict public humiliation on them so that others would consequently be more afraid of being punished and would be more compliant.

Outside of the religious and historical context there is currently a good deal of interest in compassion; particularly in public services and in areas of the economy which are seen as essential for building and sustaining growth (banking, commercial trading and so on). The National Health Service (2013) has launched a ‘Constitution’ which outlines that staff working in the NHS pledge to support the values and rights of all who encounter the service, whether patients, users or staff as well as support the principles of the original 1948 NHS Act. The NHS and its Commissioning Board has also provided principles for good practices for nurses, midwives and care workers (Compassion in Practice 2012) which emphasises the requirement for practitioners at all levels and hierarchical seniority to demonstrate compassion. In this vocational context compassion is perceived as integral to understanding and upholding the values of caring and commitment to others which should be found in the public service as well as being the foundation for doing good.

Crane (2009) states that compassion is related to self-awareness and that by practising compassion and kindness the individual moves away from being judgemental and critical of others and gains a better understanding of the motivations and emotional investment that others give to tasks or organisational goals. In an organisational environment this can help the leader to improve efficiency and effectiveness as well as increase productivity due to the perceptions from the followers that the leader understands them and their concerns as well as conveying consistency in what is expected from them within the organisation. Similarly Thomas (2012) argues that focusing on the technical aspects of practice in any organisation (medical, engineering, commercial etc.) outside a moral context removes the responsibility for compassion. This encourages leaders to pursue activities and behaviours which are not necessarily for the wellbeing of others or the community, whether they be individual patients, societal issues of sustainability or commercial transactions.

Fish (2012) argues that a trusting relationship between followers and leaders cannot be sustained without an “active concern” (p. 160) by the leader for others and a willingness to work with people rather than instruct or command them. Like Thomas above, Fish is talking within the context of medical education and is concerned with developing a more moral approach to teaching practice for the benefit of the patients rather than the employer. She points out that the leader and the follower; in this case the teacher and the student, have a commitment to achieve what is in the best interests of the patients rather than in the relationship itself and stresses that kindness in organisations is not about developing mutual dependency relationships. Hansen (2001) takes a similar view and suggests that kindness in an organisational setting is contextualised within expected behaviours and interactions. Compassion and kindness centres on a relationship between the leader and followers where both sides learn how each other think and react in situations and so become closer but simultaneously retain awareness of the separateness and apartness due to their individual roles within the organisation. This can be most clearly demonstrated in a military setting where some studies have suggested that the coherence and consistency of unit and platoon leaders coupled with a sense of camaraderie amongst those being led has a beneficial impact on the prevention of combat precipitated mental health problems (Finnegan et al. 2010, 2011).

This is similar to the work of Boyatzis et al. (2006) who argued for a better approach to sustainable leadership through the practice of coaching and compassion. They defined compassion as having three components or attributes; empathy or understanding the feelings of others, caring for the other person and a willingness to act in response to the feelings of others. They stress that the compassionate relationship is not based on any expectations of future benefit for either party but on the leader genuinely taking responsibility for caring for those around them and resisting the temptation to see staff as disposable resources.

Compassion and kindness are viewed here as an integral attribute of grace which in turn is put forward as thoughtful and considerate words and deeds by the leader which benefits followers, the organisation and wider society and supports the development and resilience of moral values in leadership.

The Meaning of Grace and Pragmatism in Leadership

The concept of grace as applied to societal values was first explored in detail in 1794 by the German philosopher (Schiller 2004; Russell 2000) one of the founding thinkers on modern pragmatism, the practical application of concepts and actions and their consequences. Schiller published a treatise on grace and dignity, On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters (1794), which examined the application of grace in his response to Kant’s work on morality in the Critique of Pure Reason (1787) and in particular the Critique of the Faculty of Judgement (1790). Kant had argued that the betterment of moral character could be achieved through the development of a sense of duty towards others which, in partnership with intellect, would provide dignity in one’s life and community living. Morality could be best judged by the motivation for behaviour rather than the consequences of actions and for Kant, moral education alongside awareness of responsible civic and personal duty would enhance the life of the community.

Schiller responded by rejecting Kant’s emphasis on value-knowledge as being based primarily on intellect and applied through duty. Instead he suggested that a sense of duty towards others is more often swayed by emotional inclination rather than intellect. Emotional inclination which is influenced by both internal desires and external drivers and so moral duty or dignity can be readily compromised by the desire for, and pursuit of, materialistic comfort, wealth, esteem, status or fame at the expense of others. Schiller also argued that the division of labour in the working environment and generally in society led to over-specialisation and one-dimensional approaches to personal and societal advancements which in turn prevented generosity of thinking and the free inter-change of knowledge and ideas. For Schiller Kant’s utilitarianism approach prevents the full development of the science and arts. In this sense he influenced Herbert Marcuse’s work on the Freudian interpretation of capitalism and its bleak influence on the emotional life of workers (Marcuse 1987). Schiller went on to propose that pragmatism could be developed if the individual rationally recognised that a balance should be maintained between actions that meet one’s own desires and the actions that meet the needs of others and society. Such responsibilities are socially valued and include grace, compassion, supporting the development of others, genuineness, kindness and authenticity in one’s own behaviours towards others. For Schiller Kantian pragmatism was not a rational utilitarian choice, between the greatest good or for personal betterment, rather he viewed pragmatism as the knowledge which allowed an individual to transcend the human instinct for self-interest, to recognise self-interested drivers and overcome them for the good of the self and society. Schiller also took issue with Kant’s suggestion that behaviour can be better judged (ethically and morally) by motivations rather than consequences and instead he argued that they are not separate but indivisible, that the cognitive and physical drivers of behaviour are also influenced by objectives which themselves have consequences. Schiller placed further layers of moral thinking and behaviour on top of Kantian moral awareness and duty by proposing that both motivations and consequences should be judged for their aesthetic values of compassion and grace towards others. In this pragmatic context he included works of art, drama, poetry as well as commerce, business, public services and social interaction.

Cameron (2011) introduces a debate on the nature of a universal definition of virtuous leadership with emphasis on moral responsibility and continues a theme first discussed by Aristotle (1999) and taken up in more detail by Fredrick of Prussia (1981) in his response to Machiavelli. Aristotle considered leadership in terms of moral goodness and whilst kindness and compassion are not mentioned the connection between goodness and justice are common themes in his work. Fredrick (1730) considered leadership earlier in the same century as Kant and Schiller after studying military leadership and statecraft. Fredrick was highly critical of Machiavelli’s model (1988) which he suggested was leadership based on manipulation and fear and he proposed an alternative model based on kindness and mercy. Although his work is not as well-known as Machiavelli’s in terms of modern leadership he provides more insight into the notion of grace and the later work of Kant and Schiller. Cameron (2011) examines models that focus on virtue and most of her review includes concepts relevant to leadership grace such as care, compassion, forgiveness, inspiration, respect and integrity. Similar concept attributes can be found in Christian writings on leadership. For example Shaw (2010) used case studies from leaders in a wide range of activities from military, banking and the civil service and states that forgiveness and compassion are central tenets of leadership. For Shaw and several theological thinkers forgiveness and compassion are not confused with poor business judgements but rather as boldness and learning through experience. However this literature is not mainstream reading for the business community and remains within the subject domain of theology and therefore not included here.

Nevertheless for the contemporary leader it could be assumed, perhaps wrongly, that value awareness is axiomatic as both Kant and Schiller’s views suggest that disengagement between personal values and what could be termed economic/materialistic values can cause the lack of equilibrium between actions to satisfy one’s own desires and actions to satisfy the needs of wider society and its members. Personal moral principles, integrity, worthiness, authenticity, wellbeing and grace can be compromised by the drive for profit margins, bonuses, acquisitions, economic programmes and ill-considered strategies for increased staff efficiency and productivity. We argue that the hustle and bustle of corporate and political life, particularly following the financial crises and the publicity given to negative organisational cultures and leadership, impacts on employee and societal trust in corporate, institutional and political leadership. The decline in trust raises interesting issues which impacts on the practice of grace. For example in leadership how often does the daily workload compromise the practice of compassion itself, such as showing appreciation of others, having the capacity and time to respond; and understanding the meaning of interactions between the leader and others in the organisation. This is more than the understanding of emotional intelligence because authentic kindness in leadership promotes other values which improve the effectiveness of the organisation as a whole. These values include shared purposefulness, responsibility, commitment, practicality, participation and an improved understanding of the meanings which underpin leadership strategy. Schiller’s pragmatism is therefore the awareness that one’s actions have both motivators and consequences which can be judged on equal moral grounds on the basis of self-interest or compassion and kindness (grace) towards others and society at large.

Review Method

This study has two objectives; to discover whether the concept of grace with its attributes of compassion and kindness is discussed within the literature examining leadership characteristics and whether the concept and attributes are viewed as valuable for the contemporary leader.

The paper reviews a sample of published work using concept analysis methodology to evaluate leadership characteristics and explore the concept of grace with its attributes of kindness and compassion. From the number of sources provided a random number of 12 articles and books were chosen and examined more closely for the attributes of kindness and compassion. The 24 sources yielded a total of 2,096 references and 3,016 identified interviews over a 15 year period. Using Schiller’s (1794) approach to pragmatism grace is defined as doing ‘good’ and demonstrating compassion and kindness to others within a pragmatic context.

The study used concept analytical approaches, (Walker and Avant (2005) which involved several iterative stages. Initially the process began by identifying the concept grace using Schiller’s work on pragmatism before submitting key words and attributes into internet search engines to find published work on leadership characteristics. Using the key words of ‘grace’, ‘compassion’ and ‘kindness’ a search was carried out on published work examining models and characteristics of leadership over the last 15 years. Related words that had frequent associations with compassion were ‘emotional intelligence’ and ‘authenticity’. The analysis continued with a comparative evaluation of the application of grace and its attributes (compassion and kindness) between published articles and text-books chosen from the list of publications arising out of the word search. Following this stage of analysis an exploration of the use and consequences of grace in practice was completed within the context of values and behaviours in leadership practices. As expected there were no references to ‘grace’ found in the literature material but several references to associated concept attributes such as ‘compassion’, ‘kindness’, ‘authenticity’ and ‘emotional intelligence’. In turn the attributes of ‘compassion’ and ‘kindness’ were utilised for further analysis to discover what status they held within the work of leadership characteristics. Thirteen articles and 12 books were chosen and examined more closely for the attributes of kindness and compassion. The 24 sources yielded a total of 2,096 references and 3,016 identified interviews over a 15 year period (1997–2012).

A decision was made to separate textbooks from articles on the basis that the scrutinised texts’ examined ideas and guidance on theoretical positions whilst the articles examined application in practice. As pragmatism is based on the premise that actions and ideas are judged by practical implementation rather than theory this seemed a rational position. It was also interesting to see if the guidance provided and cited in the textbooks were applied, supported and evaluated in the articles.

Despite the potential for misunderstanding both ‘emotional intelligence’ and ‘transformative/collaborative’ approaches have been promoted for a number of years; for example Fullan (2001) proposed five components of the successful change leader which can be generally categorised under the emotional leadership model and have attributes of grace. The five components include moral purpose, understanding change, relationships, knowledge building and coherence making. Fullan’s work clearly differs from Goleman’s six leadership styles (2000) which appear to balance characteristics encompassing transformational and transactional models with an emphasis on approaches which he termed coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching. One can sense the debate developing during the turn of the century in this area; Palmer et al. (2001) utilised a modified version of the trait meta-mood scale and concluded that transformational leadership was more effective than transactional leadership styles. Furthermore, the more successful transformational style was correlated with higher emotional intelligence. However there is confusion and misunderstanding regarding emotional intelligence for leadership with some holding a more Machiavellian view that it is a tool to sustain manipulation of employees rather than the development of others for their benefit, (Archer and Cameron 2009). This makes analysis of the concept grace and attributes such as kindness and compassion difficult and the debate about whether leadership requires an awareness and reaction towards the feelings of others was not clear-cut. Burke (2002) examined ‘transactional’ and ‘transformational’ leadership and argued that both are required to lead a complex and continuously changing organisation but there is little about grace or kindness in the work despite thirteen pages of closely typed references totalling over 350 citations (pp. 303–316).

Upenieks (2003) examined the ‘magnetic’ and ‘non-magnetic’ attributes of leaders, terms used to describe the abilities to attract and retain staff due to the perception of the leadership held by the workforce; in this case one of the most pragmatic and caring professions, nursing. The leadership attributes valued by nurses included credibility, passion (for the profession) and self-confidence. Positively perceived behaviours included being supportive, visionary, knowledgeable, visible and responsive. Upenieks found that leaders, who were perceived as authentic and credible, particularly in their understanding of clinical practice and the realities of care, provided higher staff attraction and retention for the organisation itself. The focus on authentic leadership is understandable when one considers the work of Warren Bennis and his influence in this area over many years. Bennis (2002) emphasises creative collaboration and authenticity through experience, self-knowledge and personal ethics and can be described as one of the founders of the authentic leaders’ movement. In Upenieks’ study, examining a caring profession during a more positive economic period, it is perhaps unsurprising to find attributes which support the concept of grace and its application through kindness and compassion. One could also surmise that the caring professionals would stress the importance of strong values and therefore authentic leadership behaviours and performance. In the caring professions grace, as perceived by the workforce, is professionally, occupationally or organisationally focused but with the drive towards reduced resources in public funded care it would be interesting to see Upenieks’ study replicated in these more austere times; in particular whether the essential characteristics of kindness and compassion expected by staff in their leaders are compromised by the conflicting demands on leaders for a more instrumental service delivery and the consequent negative impact on care itself.

Dorfmann et al. (1997) examined leadership traits across Western and Asian countries to see if there were any cultural specifics of commonalities. They concluded that effective leadership traits shared across both geo-political spheres included leaders who were perceived as supportive, used contingent reward processes and were charismatic. Difference between the two areas included cultures that valued ‘directive’ leaders, others that gave more value to ‘participative’ leaders and some countries which perceived contingent punishment processes as effective. Leadership characteristics are therefore not only profession or occupation-specific but also cultural-specific with only some traits having universal value. It would be interesting to see if the universal traits were more widely perceived following the growth in economic globalisation over the last 20 years. Certainly the review by Harris (2010) examining leadership ethics suggests that one universal trait should be a more global awareness required in these more difficult economic times and reflects the work of Muller-Seitz (2012) that pressures on leaders to be focused on the almost instantaneous bottom line returns causes a loss of wider vision. Harris suggests that the most effective leaders in uncertain economic and social periods have common characteristics of boldness, political understanding, awareness of both public and private sector decision-making, networking skills, information-giving abilities, robustness and sustainability and the skills to exert influence and change. Similarly, Muller-Seitz considers leaders operating in inter-organisational networks using outcome measures which focus on knowledge, vision, trust and capabilities. However, he differs from Harris in suggesting that future research should focus on multiple levels of analysis that may give insight into more personal interactions that reflect leadership rather than governance, which he sees as critical in a public sector multi-agency setting.

Bryman (2007) looked at effective leadership in the UK higher education sector and concluded that in this arena the first problem to overcome was the difficulty in finding any consensus regarding the definition of leadership amongst academics. The difficulty was based on the perception by many in the academic community that leadership can be found in different roles. For example one group of academics may see the subject-based leader as the Professor; another group may view the leader as departmental-based managing several different subject areas or faculty-based, leading several different departments and specialities/subjects. Once outside the faculty leadership may be viewed as executive-based (the Vice-Chancellor/President and senior management team) or administrative and support services-based (leadership of libraries, registry and so on). Nevertheless there was some agreement which appear to support Upeniek’s (2003) ‘magnetic leadership’ with a universal view that successful leaders attracted and appointed staff that enhanced the reputation of the organisation, created a collegiate atmosphere, advanced departmental or subject causes, provided feedback on performance and provided, or successfully, gained resources for staff. Thereafter Bryman found that the studies reached different conclusions. Providing direction and strategic vision and being a participative leader was valued in most studies (11) but other studies concluded that being a good role model and having academic credibility were seen as the most valued leadership characteristics (9). Being facilitative, treating staff with integrity and being considerate were valued most in seven studies, personal integrity was cited in six studies and five studies concluded that communicating well were the most valued attributes of effective leadership. Like Upeniek’s findings in the caring professions the attributes of grace in university leadership appears to be desired by the workforce but may be found wanting in the current crop of leaders struggling to articulate a cohesive collective leadership approach which reflects the concerns of the academy about government policies which drive an instrumentalist rather than an inherently socially valued approach to higher education. Attributes of pragmatism and grace in leadership may now be perceived by academics as having even higher values in the current economic austerity programme, the reduction in public funding and governmental policy changes in UK Higher education.

It can be sardonically assumed that difficulty in reaching a consensus on the attributes of effective leadership is not surprising within the academic community. Academia traditionally values a questioning and sceptical approach to its everyday work and has, over centuries, developed elaborate and collaborative divisions, hierarchies, specialities and sub-specialities within individual learning communities and other academic institutions. In such an environment leadership is more fluid yet the values of grace and kindness in leadership can be perceived, albeit opaquely, in the characteristics of ‘participative’ leadership, in being considerate, treating staff fairly and demonstrating integrity.

A similar study on effective leadership was carried out within the college-based education sector by Collinson and Collinson (2009) with the aim of identifying characteristics of blended leadership cited by college and further education employees. Collinson and Collinson focused on ‘heroic’ and ‘post-heroic’ characteristics which led to increased effectiveness. Heroic styles included being directive, strategic, inspirational, charismatic, trusting and committed whilst post-heroic styles included being distributive, collaborative or a mixture of collective/distributive. They concluded that ‘blended’ leadership; a combination of both heroic and post-heroic traits provided the most effective leadership. They also argue that the mixture of characteristics is more realistic in the leadership of contemporary environments and high performing leaders exhibit contradictory yet mutually complimentary traits such as being modest yet wilful, humble yet fearless and resolute yet stoic. Some of the review findings mirrored earlier work by Collinson (2005, 2006) with emphasis on the dialectical yet complimentary nature of effective leadership characteristics and which suggested that similar sophisticated dialectical value judgements were also made by those being led. Gronn (2002) adopted the post-heroic approach arguing that distributive leadership traits were more effective than heroic traits, a view shared by Mintzberg (2006) who criticised the obsession with heroic characteristics. Wheeler et al. (2007), however, suggests that creative risk-takers who are found to be charismatic and domineering battlers increased performance; traits that are more heroic. Yet they also found that quiet stoics and servant-leaders were also effective with more dialectical post-heroic traits. No explicit mentions of compassion or kindness attributes were found in the reviews.

This approach where leadership traits or characteristics are actually much more nuanced than simple categorisations or models suggest is found in the literature around complexity approaches. In management and leadership complexity approaches can be summarised in the view that in certain situations phenomena occurs which are not amenable to either directive approaches (as in emergency responses), historical reactions (as in past tactics to solve a problem) or logical analysis (for example as found in computer modelling of trends). Such phenomenon requires new and novel ways of dealing with the situation which itself may change due to the intervention and very often cannot be generalised into similar situations which occur elsewhere. Complexity provides a perspective which seeks to understand systems that form, change and evolve on a constant or time-limited basis, (World Economic Forum 2013). This complex phenomenon is often termed wicked questions although the term itself has no moral context. This has led to interest in Uncertainty management approaches with its focus on leadership experienced within a constantly changing and unstable environment. Moorman and Grover (2009) examined follower’s perception of leaders’ integrity using an uncertainty management model. They suggested that followers define the leaders’ consistency in deeds and words as a model of integrity which they use to try and fill in missing management information or predict future decisions. Integrity in leadership is therefore important because followers use it to manage their own uncertainty about decision-making and also whether current communication by the leader is consistent with predictive future behaviours and actions are trustworthy and appropriate.

Goddard and Vallance (2011) examined the leadership required in the knowledge-based sector for universities to re-engage with its locality in a more meaningful way. They are much more explicit when they argue that the knowledge economy need leaders that have the abilities to be more externally engaged and also work collaboratively in a multi-organisational environment with many different stakeholders. They argue that leaders should look out of their organisations and subjects because they can be more effective if they recognise, encourage, develop, protect and value the development of outstanding individuals who exhibit the skills to promote collaborative and complex networks. In such environments individuals with the future potential to be leaders can emerge from further down the hierarchy, particularly if they have the support of current leaders to mentor their progress and ensure behaviours align themselves with the strategic priorities of the institution. Such characteristics, aimed at developing stronger links between the knowledge providers and their regions, align themselves to the Schillerian concept of grace with its focus on doing good for the community.

An analysis of text-books rather than articles, using ‘grace’, ‘kindness’, ‘authenticity’ and ‘compassion’ as key search words provided different findings. Although in general terms there is much more written about conventional leadership models (heroic, post-heroic, post-modern, transformative, participative, adaptive and so on) than about the impact of grace and kindness as leadership traits, nevertheless, in books the authors are more likely to allude to the concept of grace if not specifically writing about kindness and compassion. For example, Heifetz et al. (2009) work on ‘adaptive’ leadership specifically mentions compassion as a method of supporting sustainability and having the patience to achieve objectives. They note that compassion comes from understanding other people, being aware of their issues and how much is being asked of them. Whilst they do not fully articulate authenticity they do focus on the leader being genuinely engaged with people whilst simultaneously being focused on the organisational goals, in other words they are not mutually exclusive. Ruddle (2008) also examines leadership model and cites 20 influences on his journey through different models including heroic, technician, navigational, adaptive leadership and complexity. He concludes that there is a need to carry out further research in a more collaborative format between practitioners and researchers in the area of leadership and notes a “wider malaise which has to do with trust and capability” (p. 336) which appears to match the growing tendency for more centralised control of social policies and public services away from devolved self-organising systems. One could therefore dialectically argue that his review and experiences of leadership theory in practice suggests a decrease in grace and kindness amongst those who seek to increase centralised control of organisations.

Senge (1999), like Mintzberg, criticises heroic leadership approaches as a form of ‘cultural addiction’ (p. 11) and that the behaviours of cutting costs and jobs to boost productivity and profit is actually counter-productive as it leads to a stagnation of new initiatives as more and more people become too afraid to speak up in the organisation; the antithesis of gracious leadership. Senge expressed the views espoused by Collinson and Collinson (2009) arguing that being humble is supportive of leadership positions and leaders do not just magically appear as chief executives, they would have had to work their way through the hierarchy gaining experiences as they go along. Learning within an organisation that articulates vision and is able to have truthful dialogue leads to a more authentic leader and is close to the concept of grace in leadership. Senge et al. (2006) continued this theme by interviewing 150 scientists and business and social entrepreneurs and conclude, much like Ruddle, that for businesses to succeed and leaders to be effective there needs to be a deeper sense of trust in leadership so that more commitment to tackle global issues can be developed. Clearly such conclusions support the concept of grace with the emphasis on doing good for society as a whole.

Dunphy (2000), in a comparison of top-down management and ‘participative’ leadership approaches concluded that engaging staff in the leadership of organisations does improve productivity and efficiency but this had yet to be embraced by leaders who continued to instruct and order staff in a hierarchical manner. Like the findings of Ruddle (2008) and Senge et al. (2006) such leaders fail to see the damage caused by the erosion of trust and mutual respect on both the person and the organisation itself and suggests that the lack of grace and kindness contrasts with the inauthentic ‘role-playing’ that some leaders adopt in their working lives. In addition leaders do not appear to perceive the erosion of trust or that others see them as inauthentic when attributing values to their leadership.

Gill (2006a, b) cites nearly three hundred references in his overview of current thinking about leadership and covers trait theory, emergent leadership, action-centred leadership, contingency, transformational, visionary, charismatic, pragmatic and strategic theories. He concludes that most of the theories lack strong empirical support and criticises much of the work for omitting the spiritual element of people’s lives such as the search for meaning. Even when there are such studies they tend to be superficial. This is not a new stance, in the mid-1990s there were calls for more work on leadership beliefs and employee trust which have not been adequately addressed. Gill goes on to discuss a different model of leadership which encompasses cognitive, emotional, spiritual and behavioural dimensions but little is found in the area of spirituality, outside of theology, and nothing explicitly, in the majority of references reviewed in this study.

Archer and Cameron (2009) emphasised ‘collaborative’ leadership and identifies five attributes; empathy, patience, tenacity, honesty (when confronting difficulties) and coalition building. Interestingly Archer and Cameron also refer to the paradox of leadership (without explicitly stating so) when they note that the leader can gain more power by giving some power away rather ‘than by holding tightly on to it’ (pp. 121). On first reading such attributes appear to accord with the concept of grace and doing good but both authors specifically state that giving away control is not about being altruistic, which appears to go against the concepts of compassion and kindness. In fact their definition of empathy is less to do with understanding the viewpoint of the other but more aligned to understanding what drives others and makes them behave in certain ways, which seems to imply leadership manipulation rather than genuineness.

Further to the analysis of the text-books themselves an analysis of both articles and books were carried out and separated into two groups. The tables below summarise the findings of the word-search analysis, (Tables 1, 2). The book sources, as expected with the word search, cover a range of what could be termed more ‘societal’ or ‘person-centred’ models of leadership and include civic, collaborative, citizenship, supportive, transactional, transformative, integrative, participative and adaptive. But whilst the journal articles also include a mixture of both societal and person-centred there is more emphasis on ‘productivity’ and ‘output’ models of leadership such as emotional intelligence, magnetic, ethical, heroic, dialectical, strategic and contingent. This suggests that authors of text-books who theorise about practice findings are not pragmatic because they are not having a dominant influence on the application of ‘person-centred’ or ‘societal’ leadership practices out in the field which continue to be more instrumental-led, institutionally biased and centred on the individual leader characteristics.

Table 1 Journal articles
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Table 2 Text-book sources
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This can be seen when examining the term ‘compassion’ which is much more widely used and accepted as a leadership concept throughout all the published works. Within the text-books compassion is explicitly covered in 10 out of 12 whilst in the articles a similar finding occurs with compassion mentioned in 8 out of the 12. This is with a reference list of over 2,000 and involving over 3,000 interviews with leaders, directors and employees. Overall compassion was absent in only two books and four articles but virtually all presentations of the concept appear to be hierarchically dominant, patriarchal in description if not in intent and nearly always contextualised within organisational strategies and therefore for consideration within a leadership style rather than being seen as an essential component of enhanced leadership. Nevertheless, compassion was stressed as important characteristics in eighteen out of the 24 sources.

Yet ‘kindness’, which is closely related in practice to the concept of compassion, gets much poorer coverage. No article or cited sources mentioned kindness as a leadership issue whilst only seven out of the 12 text-books either allude to or mention concepts that can be perceived as attributes of kindness. In total seventeen of the published 24 scrutinised publications did not mention kindness at all compared to seven textbooks that allude to the concept in leadership practice. This suggests that the concept of compassion is either not fully understood or students of leaders and leadership are not comfortable with the word kindness itself. After all it is hard to conceive the act of compassion not including kindness at some level. Yet at times there seems to be convoluted attempts to include compassion as a concept important for people-orientated and citizenship-centred leaders whilst excluding any sense of practice-based kindness, the application of pragmatic compassion. This may be related to market-driven corporate values of materialism and wealth and the emphasis on the leadership role and function in commerce, enterprise and business to increase shareholder wealth and generate more money rather than emphasise values which highlight leadership for the good of others and society per se. After all it is not a difficult exercise to question whether the values held by recent leaders of financial institutions, political office or policy-making bodies have demonstrated practical benefits of grace; that is, doing good for society and its members through the application of kindness for the benefit of its citizens and community.

Conclusions

Some interesting conclusions for the application of leadership using compassion and kindness arise from the analysis. A review of published articles and textbooks indicate that there is conceptual confusion regarding the definition of compassion and its application in leadership practices; furthermore that kindness is not discussed within the concept or attributes of compassion and that kindness may be viewed as a weakness by contemporary self-selecting leaders. The differences and confusion regarding the concept of compassion within the literature range from the idea of tolerance of others to understanding the feelings of others; all of which are contextualised within the corporate or organisational structure. Hence, the ideas of tolerance and understanding are viewed firmly within a hierarchical pyramid with the leader at its head. For example little is said about the impact of compassion shown back to the leader by his or her employees. Furthermore, despite wide-spread coverage there are scant details regarding the outcome of compassion in terms of efficiency and effectiveness or the inter-relationship between the leader and followers. This may be due to the lack of research in the differences between role ascribing; the leader given the characteristic of compassion; and role achievement, where the leader demonstrates the act of compassion. Pretending to be compassionate is inauthentic leadership and reinforces mistrust.

It may be deemed appropriate in this age of austerity for organisations and institutions to emphasise that compassion is required in leaders and therefore the concept appears regularly in published work focusing on selected commercial market-driven environment. It is less studied in fields such as the trade union movement, vocational employment, green activists, the third sector, religious or voluntary workers which may be because the concept of compassion is seen as explicitly bound to the concept of kindness and caring. This can be found in the work of Bryman (2007) and Upenieks (2003) which examined universities and health care, respectively and report that staff work for vocational rather than profit reasons. The difficulty in defining leadership in academia can be attributed to the history of the collegiate, discipline-based organisation found in the academic community which values knowledge above monetary gain. Academics, in the main, hold life-long emotional relationships with their subject area and therefore lean towards subject collaboration across organisations and boundaries rather than engage in commercial competition. This view of academia may be changing however as managerialist practices ascend in the sector against a mounting staff sullenness towards the perceived lack of cohesive sector leadership. Interestingly this view of a fragmented sector leadership is related to a perceived lack of commitment to, and understanding of, the values considered important by the academic body. Such concerns relate to the findings of Upeniek’s work which clearly articulates the needs of nurses to have leaders who understand their world and can authentically engage in values of care in a vocational context. This is in contrast to leaders who claim they share the caring values but demonstrate a willingness to reduce the services and resources required by the sick and the vulnerable in society thereby failing to demonstrate pragmatism, grace or compassion.

It is a real dilemma for the commercial and profit-driven sector where the lack of societal responsibility and caring for others has received such severe criticism and it is no surprise to find the response to such criticism in the rising calls for demonstration of compassion. Yet whilst compassion is identified as a characteristic of a leader it is often without due consideration to its pragmatism, for its application of kindness which can cause role conflict or conceptual confusion for those leaders engaged in profit-driven or personal-gain strategy. In addition there is little work on leaders who do not show compassion. This may be because the concept of compassion is currently deemed to be one that is in favour for several reasons, one of which may be the aim, awkwardly presented, of sustaining leadership in the age of economic austerity. Presenting leaders who do not appear to be compassionate is not good marketing for any organisation and this where the authentic demonstration of compassion can be difficult; yet pretending to care, pretending to be kind, is not sustainable or pragmatic and eventually severely damages trust and relationships.

Related to the view that compassion has been identified as a characteristic useful to leaders but appears to be poorly defined is the view that heads of corporations and institutions themselves have a hand in identifying the characteristics of the leader. They are the subjects of interviews, case studies or they author their own work to publish their own particular values and world-view. Leadership is therefore contextualised in the world they know and understand and rooted in traditional organisational and corporate power structures and functions (Muller-Seitz 2012). This tended to be masculine in outlook and emphasised strength of character and heroics but increasingly and more recently there has been more awareness that image and role ascribing must currently stress compassion and awareness of societal needs. It appears to be a natural desire to present one’s own leadership in the context of societal values rather than be vulnerable to the charge of greed and selfishness. Certainly the rise in the interest of emotional intelligence, authenticity and compassion in leadership has occurred alongside the criticism following the financial and political crisis of the last few years. For example Kohlrieser et al. (2012), basing much of their philosophical stance on Bennis’ authentic leader model (2009) propose a business case for caring as a mechanism that allows leaders to challenge their followers through ‘humanizing’ the work of the leader and demonstrating vulnerability. As with many studies in this area kindness is implicit but not considered in depth. The difficulty is pragmatically breaking the concept down into demonstrable practices where the inevitable scrutiny of kindness or grace give rise to the gap between role ascribing and role achieving, even by the leaders who espouse compassion.

It is interesting that so many references and interviews focus on aspects of compassion but say little, if anything at all, on kindness. Conceptually this may be because, in business, commerce and organisations, compassion is seen as a gift of hierarchical power akin to showing mercy to those over whom the leader has power. Kindness is a gift with more subtle tones; of equality, of emerging from both the leader and followers, or of being given at a cost; for example of time, resources, emotional commitment or money. It may also be that kindness, doing good for others, is perceived as a less masculine characteristic of leaders and that paradoxically, in view of the rise in compassion and authenticity, kindness is seen by existing leaders as a ‘weakness’ in character, behaviour and performance. This is an important point as leaders tend to select their successors through mentoring, coaching, career development and promotion and may in effect be selecting the same characteristics as they themselves regard as valuable in leadership. Aspiring leaders have to demonstrate the same characteristics and values as the leader which leads to a concentration of the same world view and embeds the leadership characteristics at the top of the hierarchical pyramid which is extremely difficult to change. Individuals who wish to hold on to values of grace may find they need to hide any related behaviours or actions in case such actions, and by implications their personal character, are judged as weak and indecisive. The work emerging from complexity studies appear to support a view that creating and sustaining productive working relationships relies more on time and consideration for others than developing corporate plans and business strategy; yet it is the latter skills that are seen as complimentary to future leadership positions. The literature appears to support the position that leaders self-select themselves, search for similar characteristics in others and therefore replicate and continue their own values over many years.

Whilst compassion is viewed by many as an important leadership characteristic little work has been done to measure, in a pragmatic framework, the impact of its application or the consequences of not being able to demonstrate kindness. ‘Kindness’ is not yet considered an important concept in leadership despite its assimilation in the demonstration of both compassion and authenticity. Despite the calls from theorists and students of leadership for compassion to be demonstrated the studies of its application suggest it is not yet happening or considered the norm amongst the majority of leaders. Furthermore even though published works agree that compassion is a characteristic of leadership it does not appear to be applied in the normal working day of most leaders, in other words it has no pragmatic impact. Both compassion and kindness remain peripheral to the values of leadership theory and where it does arise there is conceptual confusion and poorly defined application. Compassion, kindness and therefore grace are difficult to discern in practice and may have implications for future leaders in the areas of follower trust and commitment. There is clearly a theoretical debate around the need for ethical leadership yet continuing neglect of grace in practice; compassion and kindness are not applied in a truly pragmatic way. The need to recognise this point in terms of performance is underlined; leaders rely heavily on discretionary effort to achieve their goals so they need followers. But, except for short durations, followers will not support leaders who are perceived to serve their own interests at their expense. We argue that this debate has significance for both theorists and practitioners in the context of public affairs.