How healthcare leaders can care effectively – even when their tank is empty
When was the last time you felt truly energised by your work? Do you find yourself emotionally drained, struggling to muster empathy for your team or patients? Are you aware of compassion fatigue creeping into your leadership, or have you normalised it as “just part of the job”?
A 2023 scoping review reported highly variable prevalence of compassion fatigue among healthcare providers around the world, with rates as high as 40 per cent in nurses, physicians, and allied health professionals in some countries.
For workers within the healthcare sector, where lives depend on care, compassion fatigue is not just a personal mental health issue – it can become a systemic risk. Compassion fatigue can erode one‘s ability to care, can impact staff morale, and compromise patient outcomes.
Another systematic review and meta-analysis study from 2021, found that the worldwide decline in health providers’ psychosocial wellbeing has been observed to negatively impact both professional performance and quality of patient care.
Healthcare leaders may be particularly susceptible to compassion fatigue due to their dual role as caregivers and decision-makers.
Why does this matter? Compassion fatigue in leaders tends to have far reaching effects, resulting in wider workplace issues like apathy, disengagement, and even errors.
If a workplace leader is running on an empty tank, the wider organisation – and the communities it serves – will inevitably feel the fallout.
Understanding compassion fatigue
Compassion fatigue is the emotional and physical exhaustion that arises from prolonged exposure to high-stakes caregiving, leaving leaders feeling depleted and disconnected. Often used interchangeably with burnout or secondary trauma, compassion fatigue encompasses both but with subtle differences:
Burnout is chronic workplace stress marked by exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced efficacy. It stems from systemic issues like excessive workloads or lack of support. For example, an aged care facility manager juggling staffing shortages and budget cuts may feel burnt out and detached from their passion for care.
Secondary Trauma is the emotional toll of absorbing others’ suffering, common among healthcare leaders exposed to patients’ or employees‘ trauma. A ward supervisor hearing repeated stories of patient loss may internalise this pain, leading to heightened instances of anxiety or hypervigilance.
Compassion Fatigue combines these, reflecting a broader depletion of empathy and energy from both systemic pressures and vicarious trauma. Leaders are at a higher risk due to their role in supporting teams while simultaneously managing workplace crises. It is the cost of caring too much.
These distinctions matter because a lack of understanding can lead to ineffective solutions. Burnout may require workload adjustments, presentations of secondary trauma may benefit from therapy or counselling, but compassion fatigue demands a holistic approach addressing personal, relational, structural, systemic, and cultural factors.
Understanding compassion fatigue empowers healthcare leaders to prevent, manage, and heal from it, enabling them to lead with compassion even when their tank feels empty.
Self-care: Refilling your tank
The Bento Box of Care model was developed to help leaders shift from distress and control to fulfilment, starting with three practical steps:
- Pause and reflect: The dedication a few minutes daily to pause and reflect helps to identify signs of compassion fatigue, such as irritability or detachment. This regular act can build self-awareness, helping individuals recognise when their emotional tank is running low.
- Set healthy boundaries: Setting boundaries in the workplace can look like respectfully declining non-essential meetings, delegating of one non-critical task weekly to trusted team members, or exercising the right to disconnect outside of work hours. These boundaries help preserve the capacity to care.
- Seek support: Joining a peer support group or engaging a mentor to share challenges and strategies can be transformative for individuals working in healthcare. The proper support can serve as a reminder that no one is alone when facing workplace struggles, fostering resilience.
These steps aid leaders in moving from exhaustion to a renewed sense of purpose, enabling them to lead with kindness and understanding, despite personal strain.
Transforming the workplace
The A Culture of Care Bento Box is aimed at shifting workplaces from apathy, tokenism, and compliance to environments where compassion thrives. Leaders can:
- Model vulnerability: Expressions of genuine vulnerability from leaders, not in performative or tokenistic ways, can have positive flow on effects in the workplace. For example, facilitating discussions around self-care practices in team meetings.
- Establish a rhythm of care: Leaders may want to implement daily or weekly “care check-ins” where staff discuss wellbeing, not just work tasks. Anonymous surveys can be a helpful tool to gauge trust, reducing compliance-driven silence.
- Embed systemic care: Spending time immersed in the work and connecting with frontline staff drives understanding, allowing leaders to advocate effectively for policies like flexible work arrangement or psychosocial awareness initiatives. This creates equilibrium, replacing apathy with mutual support.
By embedding consciousness (awareness of needs), action (conscious steps), reciprocity (mutual care), and equilibrium (balanced systems), leaders can cultivate workplaces where empathy flourishes, switching toxic cycles for an effective and caring culture.
Take action
A leader‘s compassion is their strength, but an empty tank serves no one. Compassion fatigue must be recognised as a call to act, not a badge of endurance.
Starting today, one mindful pause, the delegation of one task, or one open and honest conversation can spark a movement of kindness, where care is not just given to patients but woven into an organisation's teams and communities.
Lead with heart, even when it is hard – because your care changes lives.
Dr Siew Fang Law (right) and Hannes van Rensburg are co-authors of The Power of Care.
Dr. Siew Fang is a social psychologist and peace psychology expert, Hannes is a leadership coach and former senior executive.
Email: [email protected]
