Compassionate LeadershipInstitute
Deep • Real • Kind
Compassionate leadership training & coaching for organizations worldwide.
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What brings you here?
We want to enjoy working together.
Team Coaching →Learn to lead with compassion and courage.
Leadership Training →Build excelling teams with psychological safety.
Psychological Safety →Learn to communicate with impact and care.
Advanced Communication →I want to compassionately face what holds me back.
Executive Coaching →What is compassionate leadership, really?
Read the Guide →
"The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe." Joanna Macy
Why compassion is essential
You want your life to matter. You want your work to mean something, your leadership to make an impact. The world needs leaders who dare to ask: what is my life in service of? Leaders with moral courage. With wisdom. With the compassion to stay connected to what's real, and the guts to act on it.
Compassion means responding to what's actually needed, creating the psychological safety that transforms workplace dynamics.
What we really do is create spaces where people can drop their masks and face themselves, all of themselves. Where compassion isn't just a buzzword, but an unavoidable consequence of truly seeing each other in our beautiful imperfection. And in that willingness to be seen fully, we find the deepest growth possible.
Compassion isn't soft leadership. It's the enabling condition for performance, innovation, and human potential.
These four numbers come from a much larger body of research. Browse it, with sources, in the research, or read the full story: what is compassionate leadership?
Three principles carry the work
This is what we mean when we say compassionate leadership. Everything we teach, from boardrooms to field offices, comes down to these three.
Seeing Clearly
Understanding that difficult behavior usually stems from unmet needs or unhealed wounds. This perspective transforms problems into opportunities for real solutions.
Vulnerable Strength
Leading with authentic humanity rather than polished perfection. Admitting uncertainty, owning mistakes, and asking for help when it serves the greater good.
Fierce Compassion
Sometimes kindness looks like difficult conversations, clear boundaries, or challenging someone's growth. Addressing what needs addressing while holding deep care and warmth for the person.
Thupten Jinpa's compassion research · Kristin Neff's self-compassion · Nonviolent Communication · Deep Democracy · Otto Scharmer's Theory U · the Inner Development Goals · Coherence Therapy
The way of working is experiential: practice, reflection, and real-world application.
"In a gentle way, you can shake the world." Mahatma Gandhi
Our services
Every program is completely tailored to your specific needs. Please get in touch so we can listen to what you or your team truly needs. In English or Dutch, online and in person, anywhere in the world.
Leadership Training
Where vulnerability becomes strength: deep inner transformation that helps leaders embrace both the gentle and the fierce aspects of compassion. We explore the places where you get stuck, and practice showing up as the leader your team actually needs.
Explore the training →Psychological Safety Training
The number one factor in team performance. We build a climate where people speak up, admit mistakes and take creative risks. Not from a slide deck, but experiential, with the real dynamics in the room.
Explore the training →Team Coaching
Creating the safety to be honest and the warmth to appreciate each other again. We work with whatever is there, friction or flow, and help teams see each other clearly, put their strengths to work, and enjoy the collaboration. Building teams brave enough to face what's really happening and skilled enough to grow from it.
Explore the coaching →Advanced Communication
The skills and the mindset of communication that connects. Difficult conversations, honest feedback and deep listening, grounded in Nonviolent Communication and Deep Democracy. The skill matters; the intention carries it.
Explore the training →Executive Coaching
Sometimes the work needs to happen one-on-one. Individual executive coaching for leaders ready to face their own patterns and discover what becomes possible when they do.
Explore the coaching →The course was deep, transformative, practical, connecting, fun, inspiring. I am a different person after this course.
It was nothing like I expected. It was so much more interesting and the things I learned here are lessons I could never learn in a classroom setting. It was a summerschool of life.
★★★★★
I did not expect to be changed by this course. But it did. There were a lot of discoveries and realizations within myself that I will forever hold in my heart.
★★★★★
The teachers did not teach theoretical lessons or give us motherhood statements. Everything they taught us came from their own authentic selves. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
★★★★★
How Compassion Makes Teams Stronger
This talk explores why communication skills alone aren't enough. When we see our common humanity, everything changes about how teams work together. The strongest teams don't avoid conflict. They handle it with skill and care.
"When the going gets tough in teams, you don't need more skills, techniques or tricks. You need an intention of compassion."
Want this talk live on your stage? We give keynotes on compassionate leadership, psychological safety and communication.
Go deeper
Everything we teach is rooted in research and twenty years of practice, and most of it is free to explore.
What is compassionate leadership?
A clear definition, why it isn't soft, and how leaders develop it. The full story in one long read.
Read the guide →
The research
Google, Gallup, Catalyst, BCG and Edmondson, in one place, with sources you can check.
Browse the research →
Frequently asked questions
Formats, pricing, languages and how an engagement starts. Straight answers.
Read the FAQ →
Imagine a world where leaders in every sphere have the skills to uncover the wisdom in every voice. Where inner development becomes outer impact, and personal growth and collective progress go hand in hand. This is not a utopian dream. Instead, it's a practical necessity in our interconnected world. And it starts with understanding ourselves and others, with compassion.
Who we are
Since 2006, founder Imre Végh has been supporting people and organizations worldwide: companies and universities, governments and non-profit organizations. Over the years that work has grown into the Compassionate Leadership Institute, a network of inspiring partners who bring compassionate leadership to life together. With different expertise and a shared approach, we help organizations develop their vision, talents and creativity, for a better world.
Where we've worked
Houston · Madrid · Strasbourg · Porto · Utrecht · Uganda · Laos · Vietnam · and online, across every time zone
A hall of bank leaders at BBVA, on how compassion builds a culture of innovation. 95% rated it "Excellent".
Three Utrecht Summer School courses on meaningful leadership, the Inner Development Goals and communication. This year's group alone spans 25 nationalities.
From NGO teams in Uganda to programs in Laos and Vietnam, the work goes wherever teams need it.
Our partners
The Institute is carried by a network of experienced trainers, coaches and researchers who share a passion for compassionate leadership.
Imre Végh
Founder & lead trainer
Imre Végh
Founder & lead trainer
Alies Zijlstra
Leadership coach, connector & inspirator
Alies Zijlstra
Leadership coach, connector & inspirator
Barbara Piper
Senior leadership development & compassion trainer
Barbara Piper
Senior leadership development & compassion trainer
Derek van Zoonen
Researcher (philosophy & psychology) & therapist
Derek van Zoonen
Researcher (philosophy & psychology) & therapist
Judith van den Boogert
Expert conflict resolution, life coach & trainer
Judith van den Boogert
Expert conflict resolution, life coach & trainer
Marleen Korten
Organisational psychologist, trainer & coach
Marleen Korten
Organisational psychologist, trainer & coach
Simon Douw
Psychologist, philosopher & trainer
Simon Douw
Psychologist, philosopher & trainer
Tadeusz Maros
Management coach & trainer
Tadeusz Maros
Management coach & trainer
About the founder, Imre Végh
Hi, I'm Imre. First and foremost a proud father of two and married to the love of my life. I find endless joy in the wonder of stars, the beauty of a chess game, botanical gardens, and music, from Marcus Miller to Jai Uttal.
Based in Utrecht, working worldwide
From Utrecht, the Netherlands, I provide training and coaching to organizations worldwide. In the Netherlands, I also run TrueVoice Academie, offering compassionate leadership training, open workshops, and team coaching since 2006.
Embracing opposites
I love to embrace opposites: chaos and beauty, anger and love, confrontation and connection. Because real growth isn't neat and orderly. It's challenging, uncomfortable, and absolutely worth it. So I can be sharp, direct and uncompromising, but also deeply understanding, empathetic and caring. Not a spiritual teacher, but a fellow traveler willing to sit with both the darkness and the light in all of us. Sharp enough to challenge, gentle enough to hold what we find there.
A better world
I'm concerned about the state of our planet and the future for my children: climate change, inequality, polarization. Compassionate leadership is part of how we address that, and I want to be what Roman Krznaric calls a good ancestor. I hold what Joanna Macy calls active hope: facing a painful reality while still working for change, realistic and optimistic at once, without becoming naive or cynical.
The inner work
After twenty years of working with leaders across continents, I've learned that compassionate leadership isn't about spiritual facades or naive beliefs. It's about embracing the honest, raw and messy reality of being human, and discovering that this is where our greatest strength lies. We can only guide others as far as we have journeyed ourselves, so I keep facing my own monsters too.
"Your presence is the most precious gift you can give to another human being."Marshall Rosenberg
Contact
Real change begins with seeing clearly. So please tell us what is going on and how we can help.
imre [at] cl.institute · +31 6 1260 2169
Want to work together? Great! Come as you are…