The past few years have challenged leaders and managers in many ways; most are eager to put it behind them. Yet, we’re not out of the woods because the past several years have shifted and changed organizations and the workforce. A culture of kindness will make it easier. Leadership development can provide leaders with the framework to shift an organization’s culture.
Do kind leaders lead your organization?
Researchers have found that kindness is associated with better and stronger physical and mental health, relationships, teams, communities, life satisfaction, and even economics. According to researcher and psychologist Dacher Keltner, PhD, “The science of human emotion, kindness, and goodness are not to be taken lightly; they are actually good for our bodies and minds.”
Unfortunately, uncertainty, increased stress, and frustration have challenged and tested many organizational cultures: how we collectively perceive, think, and feel at work. In addition to that, tribalism, polarity, over-exposure to vitriol, and incivility are easily sparked. Organizational culture is damaged and left unchecked over prolonged periods, altered.
The Importance of Kind Leaders
Over the past two decades, thousands of employees have been polled about their treatment at work. According to research referenced in the recent Harvard Business Review article, 98% report experiencing uncivil behavior, often prompted by thoughtlessness rather than malice.
Common forms include:
🚫 Interrupting others
🚫 Discussing other employees
🚫 Acting condescendingly, belittling someone and/or their contributions
🚫 Arriving late; responding late (or not at all)
🚫 Ignoring others
🚫 Negative eye contact or giving the side eye, dirty looks, rolling eyes, or staring
🚫 Yelling, shouting, and/or verbally assaulting others (insults, harassment)
While subtle forms (and microaggressions) are often easier to overlook, they erode engagement, morale, and organizational culture. Managers and leaders must intervene, not in kind, but in kindness. Being kind can boost oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood. In turn, our outlook, creativity, efficiency, and productivity improve.
The Leadership Skill of Kindness
Kindness is an interpersonal skill that requires strength and courage. Even though sympathy and caring for others are instinctual, consideration, empathy, and compassion are often required to lead and support others with kindness.
Kind managers understand that allowing problematic behavior to continue is not kind. They have difficult conversations with their employees to prevent ongoing failure. They work to improve the lives of others. How? First, they cultivate feelings of kindness.
Receive [CONFIDENTIAL] Coach Notes directly to your inbox.
Your e-mail address is used to send you our newsletter and information about Kashbox Coaching’s activities. You can always use the unsubscribe link included in the newsletter.
Put Kindness on Your Radar
It’s easy to focus on the negative. But when we intentionally seek acts of kindness, our bodies are rewarded very positively.
Research from 88 studies involving over 25,000 participants found that those who witness an act of kindness, from cooperative action to comforting someone in distress, increase their own kindness at work.
When people witness others being praised for their kindness, their motivation to act kindly also increases. However, the more time passes after bearing witness to kindness, the less inspired people feel.
If you’re not already, keep a journal. Make notes about acts of kindness at work. It could be a simple list with name, place, date, and action, a folder of emails, a collection of screenshots, or whatever works for you. Also, consider the social conditions that prevent kindness at work.
Practice Self-Kindness
First, recognize the hard stuff. Here are two important questions to consider:
❓ In what ways has life become more challenging?
❓ What is the current state of your social ties?
Think of times when you felt a strong connection with someone, had a meaningful conversation, or shared a success or loss, and journal about the experience.
Then, recognize ways life has improved. Have you been able to spend more time with family? Have you explored or developed different interests? What about a greater understanding of different perspectives, beliefs, or opinions?
Reinforce your self-worth. Honor who you are, and act with authenticity. Exercise your power to choose, especially when it comes to attitude.
Finally, tackle the hard stuff. Prioritize ways you can strengthen your social ties.
Establish friendships at work. Clear boundaries and a willingness to make difficult decisions are necessary. This requires emotional courage and specific skills to avoid the formation (or reputation) of an exclusive clique. Wise leaders and managers practice mindful kindness.
Practice Mindful Kindness
There are two components of mindful kindness:
✔ Consideration and action regarding the social conditions, practices, and policies that prevent employees from finding the good in human nature.
✔ Random acts of kindness are conducted in mindful ways that are sensitive, inclusive, and equitable.
Both of these components focus on treating everyone with mutual care and respect:
✔ Practice honesty with consideration. Brutal feedback is not kind. Be clear, direct, and compassionate.
✔ Show your care with unconditional acceptance. While you might not like or accept certain behaviors, separate the action from the person.
✔ Step through fear to do what is right right now. Be courageous, and practice justice and compassion for all.
✔ Welcome others into your circle. Extend kindness to everyone; grow your circle of friends.
Even the smallest acts of mindful kindness can go a long way, especially under the microscopic gaze of others. While the biochemical boost is powerful, research has found it only lasts three to four minutes. That’s why making kindness an ongoing daily practice is so important.
Expanding Kindness to Community
A new analysis of studies reveals that witnessing goodness inspires us to be kind. We are inspired to do the same when we see or hear about people acting kindly or helpful. Even the smallest gesture can have a meaningful ripple and go a long way.
In Working Knowledge, published by Harvard Business School, researcher, professor, author Boris Groysberg and journalist Susan Seligson identified seven simple phrases for communicating kindness.
Ready to Find Your Perfect Kashbox Coach?
Every executive and business leader has unique strengths and faces specific challenges. That’s why we offer a diverse team of experienced coaches, each with specialized expertise in different areas of leadership coaching.
Click the button below to match with a Kashbox Coaching leadership coach who can best help you unlock your full potential.
Words of Kindness to Use Everyday
🗨 “I hear you.”
🗨 “Are you okay?”
🗨 “What can we/I do to help?”
🗨 “How are you managing these days?”
🗨 “I’m here for you.”
🗨 “I know you’re doing the best you can.”
🗨 “Thank you.”
Incorporating these phrases into our daily conversations expands kind communities. They help satisfy our need for love and belonging and create unity.
Daily Kindness Practices
Kindness in the community sustains our capacity to thrive. When given freely, it moves beyond our immediate circle (family, co-workers, organization) to our greater community through:
😁 Service: reach out to those around you.
😁 Responsibility: take positive action wherever you are.
😁 Integrity: do the right thing.
😁 Tolerance: Honor the strength of diversity.
Tara Cousineau, PhD, author of The Kindness Cure (New Harbinger Publications, 2018), writes that “how we learn from our past and envision our future depend on how we choose to live in the present moment.” When kindness is our north star, compassion, generosity, and forgiveness become natural and spread exponentially.
Creator of the KASHBOX: Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, Habits
Helping You Realize Your Potential
I help people discover their potential, expand and develop the skills and attitudes necessary to achieve a higher degree of personal and professional success and create a plan that enables them to balance the profit motives of their business with the personal motives of their lives.
