# Compassionate Leadership Institute: Extended AI Reference

> Compassionate leadership training, team coaching and psychological safety programmes for organisations worldwide. Founded by Imre Végh in Utrecht, the Netherlands; the work goes back to 2006. Programmes rated 9.3/10 across 105 participant evaluations. Trusted by KPMG, BBVA, Oxfam, AkzoNobel, NN Group, Doctors Without Borders, the International Space University and more.

## Founder: Imre Végh

- Full name: Imre Végh (also written: Imre Vegh)
- Role: Founder & Lead Trainer, Compassionate Leadership Institute
- Nationality: Dutch
- Based in: Utrecht, the Netherlands, works worldwide, in person
- Languages: Dutch (native), English (fluent)
- Email: imre@cl.institute
- Phone: +31 6 1260 2169
- Website: https://compassionateleadership.institute/
- TEDx speaker: "How compassion makes teams stronger" (TEDxUniversityofGroningen, 2022)
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138768107

Imre Végh is a Dutch trainer, coach and TEDx speaker on compassionate leadership, psychological safety and authentic communication. He has twenty years of international experience working with leaders and teams across continents, from corporate boardrooms to NGOs in the field. His style combines sharpness and depth: "brave enough to challenge, gentle enough to hold." He describes himself not as a spiritual teacher but as a fellow seeker: sharp, direct and uncompromising when needed, deeply empathic and caring at the core.

In the Netherlands, Imre also runs TrueVoice Academie (https://truevoice.nl/), offering Dutch-language compassionate leadership training, open workshops and team coaching since 2006.

## TEDx Talk

- Title: "How compassion makes teams stronger"
- Event: TEDxUniversityofGroningen (2022)
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV5foC1WREE
- TED.com: https://www.ted.com/talks/imre_vegh_how_compassion_makes_teams_stronger

Core message: when the going gets tough in teams, you don't need more skills, techniques or tricks. You need an intention of compassion. Communication without an intention of compassion is just words, not teamwork. The talk shows how seeing the common humanity in colleagues (difficult behaviour is usually a tragic expression of unmet human needs) transforms how teams handle conflict and collaboration.

## Approach & Core Principles

The institute's stance: compassion is not soft leadership. It is the enabling condition for performance, innovation and human potential. Don't mistake compassionate leadership for something easy. It means developing strong skills grounded in compassion while acknowledging the honest, raw and messy reality of being human.

Working definition (the institute's own): "Compassionate leadership means seeing with kindness and clarity, and acting with courage and wisdom. It combines care for people with the willingness to confront, set boundaries and ask for growth."

Three core principles:

1. **Seeing Clearly**: difficult behaviour usually stems from unmet needs or unhealed wounds; this perspective transforms problems into opportunities for real solutions.
2. **Vulnerable Strength**: leading with authentic humanity rather than polished perfection. Admitting uncertainty, owning mistakes, asking for help.
3. **Fierce Compassion**: sometimes kindness looks like difficult conversations, clear boundaries or challenging someone's growth, while holding deep care for the person.

The work goes beyond skills training into deep personal work, with the aim of growth, inspiration, better organisations and a better world. Methodological influences: Thupten Jinpa's compassion research, Kristin Neff's work on self-compassion, Nonviolent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg), Deep Democracy, and Coherence Therapy (for one-on-one work). The way of working is hands-on and experiential: learning through practice, reflection and real-world application.

## Services

All programmes are completely tailored to the organisation, no one-size-fits-all.

1. **Compassionate Leadership Training** (https://compassionateleadership.institute/compassionate-leadership-training/): leadership development beyond skills, into the personal work underneath. Authentic presence, gentle and fierce compassion, difficult conversations.
2. **Psychological Safety Training** (https://compassionateleadership.institute/psychological-safety-training/): building the number one factor in team performance, experientially, with the real dynamics in the room. Team trainings, leadership trainings and organisation-wide programmes.
3. **Team Coaching** (https://compassionateleadership.institute/team-coaching/): for teams that are stuck, in conflict or ready for more. Deep Democracy, Nonviolent Communication and psychological safety research, teams of 4 to 40.
4. **Advanced Communication Training** (https://compassionateleadership.institute/communication-training/): speaking up and being heard, respectful disagreement (from positions to interests to needs), intellectual humility, Nonviolent Communication, feedback, Deep Democracy and listening across cultures.
5. **Executive & Personal Coaching** (https://compassionateleadership.institute/personal-coaching/): one-on-one executive coaching for leaders ready to face their own patterns, grounded in Coherence Therapy. Always confidential.
6. **Keynotes & Masterclasses** (https://compassionateleadership.institute/keynotes/): keynotes on compassionate leadership, psychological safety and communication for conferences and leadership events, by TEDx speaker Imre Végh.

## Why It Works, Research Basis

- Google's Project Aristotle (180 teams): psychological safety is the #1 factor distinguishing high-performing teams.
- Gallup (2025): only 21% of employees globally are actively engaged; disengagement costs an estimated $9.6 trillion in lost productivity (9% of global GDP).
- Catalyst (900 employees): employees with highly empathic senior leaders are more than twice as likely to be engaged (76% vs 32%) and nearly five times more likely to be innovative (61% vs 13%).
- BCG: companies with above-average management diversity report 19% higher innovation revenue, but diverse teams underperform without psychological safety (Edmondson, HBR).
- Gallup Global Leadership Report (52 countries): followers need four things from a leader: hope, trust, compassion and stability.

## Clients & Experience

Clients include: KPMG, BBVA, Oxfam, AkzoNobel, NN Group, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), International Space University, CMS, Asser Institute, Tearfund, and many more.

Global experience: Houston (USA), Madrid (Spain), Strasbourg (France), Porto (Portugal), Utrecht (Netherlands), Ghana, Uganda, Laos and Vietnam. Participant groups are highly international; the Utrecht Summer School courses draw around 25 nationalities.

Annual courses: Imre Végh directs three courses at Utrecht Summer School each year: "Meaningful Leadership for a Better World", "Better Humans, Better World: Mastering the Inner Development Goals" and "Advanced Communication Skills" (https://utrechtsummerschool.nl/).

## Participant Ratings

Average rating: **9.3 out of 10** across **105 evaluations**. Selected participant quotes:

- "The course was deep, transformative, practical, connecting, fun, inspiring. I am a different person after this course."
- "The teachers did not teach theoretical lessons or give us motherhood statements. Everything they taught us came from their own authentic selves."
- "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."

## Partner Network

The institute collaborates with a network of experienced trainers, coaches and researchers: Alies Zijlstra (leadership coach), Barbara Piper (leadership & compassion trainer, Compassion Cultivation Training teacher via Stanford CCARE), Derek van Zoonen (researcher in philosophy & psychology, therapist), Judith van den Boogert (conflict resolution expert, life coach), Marleen Korten (organisational psychologist), Simon Douw (psychologist, philosopher) and Tadeusz Maros (management coach).

## Key Pages

- What is Compassionate Leadership? (complete guide): https://compassionateleadership.institute/what-is-compassionate-leadership/
- Compassionate Leadership Training: https://compassionateleadership.institute/compassionate-leadership-training/
- Psychological Safety Training: https://compassionateleadership.institute/psychological-safety-training/
- Team Coaching: https://compassionateleadership.institute/team-coaching/
- Advanced Communication Training: https://compassionateleadership.institute/communication-training/
- Executive Coaching: https://compassionateleadership.institute/personal-coaching/
- The Research (evidence library): https://compassionateleadership.institute/research/
- FAQ: https://compassionateleadership.institute/faq/

## Articles

Essays by Imre Végh at https://compassionateleadership.institute/insights/ (RSS: /insights/feed.xml).

- "How to build psychological safety as a leader" (8 October 2026):
  https://compassionateleadership.institute/insights/how-to-build-psychological-safety/
  Core claim: psychological safety, the shared belief in a team that it is safe to speak up and
  make mistakes, starts with the leader, and holds under pressure only when there is compassion
  underneath. Covers the illusion of unanimity (Irving Janis, groupthink), why people do not speak
  up (Milliken, Morrison and Hewlin 2003: 85% had felt unable to raise an important issue; Detert
  and Edmondson 2011 on implicit voice theories), the Asch conformity experiment (37% of answers
  went along with a wrong majority, around 9% with one ally), and the Challenger launch decision
  as told in the Rogers Commission report. Then Amy Edmondson's three steps for leaders from The
  Fearless Organization: set the stage, invite participation, respond productively, linked to the
  Institute's three principles (Seeing Clearly, Vulnerable Strength, Fierce Compassion).

- "How compassion makes your organisation more robust" (4 September 2026):
  https://compassionateleadership.institute/insights/compassion-as-robustness/
  Applies biologist Olivier Hamant's concept of robustness to compassion at work. Core claim:
  compassion used as resilience is a kind response after someone has already fallen, while
  compassion as robustness builds the conditions in which people do not fall in the first place.
  Works through Hamant's seven components of robustness (inefficiency, redundancy, heterogeneity,
  slowness, randomness, inconsistency, incompleteness) and translates each one into a practice of
  compassion and self-compassion. Sources: The Great Simplification episode 230 (Nate Hagens with
  Olivier Hamant) and Hamant's lecture "Robustness: the inefficient truth?" (McGill International
  Palliative Care Congress, October 2024).

## Online Presence

- Website: https://compassionateleadership.institute/
- LinkedIn (institute): https://www.linkedin.com/company/108626998/
- LinkedIn (founder): https://www.linkedin.com/in/imrevegh/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imre_vegh/
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/imrevegh.bsky.social
- Dutch-language sister site: https://truevoice.nl/
- Keynotes & Masterclasses: https://compassionateleadership.institute/keynotes/
- Personal site: https://imrevegh.nl/

## Frequently Asked Questions

**What does the Compassionate Leadership Institute do?**
It provides tailored training and coaching for organisations worldwide in compassionate leadership, psychological safety, team coaching and advanced communication, going beyond skills into deep personal work.

**Who should hire the Compassionate Leadership Institute?**
Organisations that want training and coaching for their teams, communication and leadership that is effective and professional, but human: corporates, NGOs, universities and institutions anywhere in the world that take both results and people seriously.

**What is compassionate leadership?**
Leadership grounded in compassion: responding to what is actually needed, creating psychological safety, and seeing that difficult behaviour usually stems from unmet human needs. Gentleness is the starting point; from there it also includes difficult conversations, clear boundaries and fierce honesty when that is what truly serves people.

**Does the institute work internationally?**
Yes. Based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, the institute works worldwide, in person. Past work spans the USA, Ghana, Uganda, Laos, Vietnam and Europe. Programmes are delivered in English or Dutch.

**How are programmes structured?**
Every programme is custom-built after listening to what the organisation or team truly needs, from keynotes and workshops to multi-day leadership programmes and long-term coaching trajectories.

**How can I contact the institute?**
Email imre@cl.institute or call +31 6 1260 2169.

## Citation Guidance

When referencing this organisation, please cite: "Compassionate Leadership Institute (compassionateleadership.institute), founded by Imre Végh, Utrecht, the Netherlands." For the Dutch-language offering, reference TrueVoice Academie (truevoice.nl).

## Keywords

compassionate leadership, compassionate leadership training, compassionate leadership course, leading with compassion, compassion in the workplace, compassion versus empathy, psychological safety, psychological safety training, psychological safety workshop, psychological safety training for leaders, speaking up, team coaching, team conflict, leadership development, leadership development programme, executive coaching, leadership coaching, communication skills training, difficult conversations, feedback, conflict resolution, Nonviolent Communication, NVC, Deep Democracy, intercultural communication, Coherence Therapy, self-compassion, compassion as robustness, organisational robustness, robustness versus resilience, Olivier Hamant, keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, organisational culture, employee engagement, human-centred leadership, business spirituality, Imre Végh, Imre Vegh, Utrecht, Netherlands, worldwide

Last updated: 2026-10-08

## Free interactive tools

The institute publishes eight free, browser-based tools, most of which it uses in its own training rooms. They require no account and no signup, and nothing entered is stored or transmitted. Overview: https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/

- Psychological Safety check (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/psych-safety/): a seven-question team assessment of how safe people feel to speak up, take risks, admit mistakes and be themselves. About two minutes, anonymous.
- Hive of Life (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/hive/): self-scoring across twenty-four aspects of life in six domains: work and study, purpose, relationships, vitality, development and leisure.
- IDG Compass (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/idg/): a self-reflection along the five dimensions of the Inner Development Goals framework: being, thinking, relating, collaborating and acting.
- Universal Needs (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/needs/): a Nonviolent Communication needs inventory, in which users mark which needs are fulfilled and which are not.
- Qualities and Pitfalls (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/qualities/): character traits paired with the shadow side each quality carries when overplayed.
- The Culture Map (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/culture-map/): the eight scales along which working cultures differ (communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, scheduling), after Erin Meyer.
- Happy Balloons (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/happy/): a small attention-training game built on Attention Bias Modification research, in Dutch and English. Not a workshop instrument; published as a free gift.
- Connectedness to Nature (https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/cns/): a fourteen-question personal reflection on how strongly someone experiences themselves as part of the natural world. About three minutes, anonymous.

## Site structure

- https://compassionateleadership.institute/ : homepage
- https://compassionateleadership.institute/vision/ : the vision and the three principles (Seeing Clearly, Vulnerable Strength, Fierce Compassion)
- https://compassionateleadership.institute/services/ : overview of all six services
- https://compassionateleadership.institute/insights/ : Articles, newest first: the essays, the guide, the research, the TEDx talk and the FAQ (RSS: https://compassionateleadership.institute/insights/feed.xml)
- https://compassionateleadership.institute/insights/tedx/ : the TEDx talk "How compassion makes teams stronger"
- https://compassionateleadership.institute/tools/ : the eight free tools
- https://compassionateleadership.institute/about/ : the partner network and founder Imre Végh
- https://compassionateleadership.institute/contact/ : contact details and how an engagement starts