Compassion in Higher Education Leadership: Casualty or companion during the era of coronavirus?

Abstract

Coronavirus has presented the world with enormous challenges but also, potentially, an opportunity in that it has provided a way for people to share that they are suffering and to permit others to respond with compassion. Universities have become increasingly difficult working environments since the late 1990s due to high levels of competition, global league tables and a move towards scientific managerialism. A lack of compassion in academia now contrasts sharply with the care and support that we have seen in our communities as a result of Covid-19. This opinion piece acknowledges that different forms of suffering can be either inevitable or preventable and argues that our university leaders must take the opportunity presented by Covid-19 to redesign compassion into our structures and eliminate the preventable suffering. This is a call to arms for the sector to embrace compassion as the leadership tool of the future.