Muhammad Ali Believed Compassion Was a Muscle. New Data Suggests He Was Right
Organizers of the index say it’s the missing link to resolving conflict and strengthening communities.
EXPERT OPINION BY DANIELA PIERRE-BRAVO
At an Olympic Games, the late professional boxer and activist Muhammad Ali watched a boxing match and slipped away to the locker room. It wasn’t to congratulate the winner, but to find the man who lost.
Farah Pandith, the architect of the Muhammad Ali Index that measures compassion, heard the story from his widow, Lonnie Ali. She said Ali sat down with the defeated fighter, who had his head in his hands, and began telling him everything he’d done well. By the time Ali left, the man was smiling. Asked why he’d sought him out, Ali said, “He needed me. The other guy didn’t need me. He needed me.”
There were no cameras in that locker room
There were no cameras in that locker room that day. And that, Pandith says, is the point.
A decade after his passing, that instinct of compassion is now the subject of a unique, global research effort — one built to prove that trait can be measured, and, more surprisingly, grown.
Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
Why measuring compassion is the missing link to effective leadership
Having spent most of her career in government working on national security and countering violent extremism, Pandith, who also serves as Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate, architected the Muhammad Ali Index: a research platform, developed by the Muhammad Ali Center, that uses data and AI to measure compassion in communities. It launched in 2025 as a 12-city U.S. pilot across the US, and it has now expanded globally.
The Center and its first international partner,
The Center and its first international partner, the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, will unveil the impact of compassion to resolve conflict and strengthen communities across one of the world’s most complex regions for the first time. It launches August 27, in Louisville, Kentucky, the center’s headquarters and Ali’s hometown.
Compassion, Pandith says, is the human capacity to think about the other. It’s a skill that matters to leadership in any community tackling problems, big or small. And importantly, she shares, more leaders can build it on purpose.
Source: www.inc.com
