Embracing Kindness in Leadership: A New Norm
Embracing Kindness in Leadership: A New Norm
Introduction
In the fast-paced world we navigate today, many of us constantly strive to enhance our leadership skills. But what does it mean to be a good leader? Is it all about being in command, giving orders, and ensuring everything aligns with our vision? Not quite!
Leading with Kindness: A Primer
As we explore the concept of leading with kindness, we need to understand what it entails and why it is vital. How can we strengthen our kind leadership muscles? How can we manifest as kind leaders in today’s environment? And what steps should we take to actualize this?
Your Experience with Kind Leadership
We’re eager to hear about your experiences. Have you encountered kind leadership, either as a team member or as a team leader? Ideally, everyone has experienced some form of kind leadership in their career!
Kindness: The Definition
Before we delve deeper, let’s establish what ‘kind’ means. As someone who worked in international law firms for 15 years, I’ve learned that defining terms is crucial. So, here are two definitions from Merriam Webster Dictionary and Cambridge Dictionary that capture the essence of kindness.
Impact of Kindness on Leadership
As we dive deeper into the impact of kindness, the results are rather impressive! Kindness releases dopamine, the happy hormone, promoting positivity and energy. It fosters self-affirmation, reinforcing our self-esteem. Who wouldn’t want a leader who cultivates such feelings? Plus, kindness has even been shown to slow the aging process!
Characteristics of Leading with Kindness
When we look at what leading with kindness means, things get even better! Characteristics of leading with kindness include self-awareness, self-compassion, acceptance, and equanimity. High-performing teams often have leaders who display these traits and possess a greater sense of personal security.
Kindness: A Strength, Not a Weakness
Despite the many benefits of kind leadership, it’s often misconstrued as a weakness. Research from ‘Psychology Today’ debunks this myth, showing that kind bosses can boost morale, decrease absenteeism, and retain employees longer.
Kind Leadership in the Workplace: The Benefits
Kind leadership can have numerous tangible benefits in the workplace, from decreasing absenteeism and retaining employees longer to boosting morale. It can even reduce recruiting costs by creating an environment where people want to stay, thereby attracting a constant pool of talent.
What Do Kind Leaders Say?
Leaders like Jacinda Ardern, Sir Richard Branson, and Satya Nadella have all embraced kindness in their leadership styles. They’ve demonstrated that compassion and strength can coexist and that caring for people’s well-being is a core part of management.
Your Turn: Share Your Thoughts on Kind Leadership
We’d love to hear your thoughts. What does kind leadership mean to you? How does it make you feel? What’s the strongest impact of kind leadership you’ve experienced? Your insights can help us further explore and promote the practice of leading with kindness.
