The Experience of Clinical Psychologists Enacting Compassionate Leadership in Health and Social Care Settings

Background: The leadership experiences of clinical psychologists remain markedly under-researched in comparison to medical and nursing professions. Post-pandemic, the health and social care landscape has rapidly evolved, with clinical psychologists operating across increasingly diverse environments, demanding new skills. While compassionate leadership has gained prominence within NHS policy discourse and emerging acknowledgement within clinical psychology professional guidelines, its lived experience among clinical psychologists, who hold leadership as a core professional function, remains largely unexamined. This study explores how clinical psychologists enact compassionate leadership, and how this is shaped by the systems in which they work. Method: Eight clinical psychologists working across a range of health and social care settings who self-identified as closely aligned with compassionate leadership following a reflective exercise, were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results: Six group experiential themes were identified: Self-compassion; Fostering psychological safety; A “courageous dance”; Deep empathy- attunement and embodiment; Misunderstood- ‘”fluffy”, “wafty”, and unboundaried; and Navigating uncompassionate systems. Discussion: The enactment of compassionate leadership is explored in relation to literature including the three-systems model of emotion regulation (Gilbert, 2009) , the 'good enough mother' theory (Winnicott, 1953), secure base leadership (Kohlrieser, 2012), reflective practice (Schön, 1983), the dual-process model of courage (Chowkase et al., 2024), role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002), mindfulness, cultural safety, and ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The findings explore how experiences of enacting compassionate leadership are informed by characteristics of gender, age, ethnicity, and by relational conditions such as psychological safety, trust, discrimination, support, and inclusive practice. Conclusion: This study shows that compassionate leadership among clinical psychologists is characterised by self-compassion, fostering psychological safety, courage, deep empathy, being misunderstood, and negotiation with systemic constraints. Compassionate leadership is shaped by individuals’ identities, organisational cultures and access to resources. The findings imply that sustaining compassionate leadership requires both individual capacities and structural supports rather than reliance on personal resilience alone. Recommendations: Ensure regular, protected reflective spaces (e.g. Schwartz Rounds, peer supervision) are maintained, introduce compassion-focused supervision, embed mindfulness-based self-compassion and compassionate leadership workshops. Strengthen psychological safety through visible leadership modelling, anti-blame cultures, culturally sensitive supervision training, and measures that support inclusive practice. Finally, to align and include compassionate leadership competencies in local and professional body leadership frameworks.