The other day I was having a chat with a colleague who works in the Kind Leadership space as well and they were frustrated. They were getting a lot of "push-back" on using the words kind and leadership together. But to create better workplaces and a better world, we need to normalize the words kind and leadership going together.
A number of years ago I was in a meeting in which a male leader used the word "blossoming" to describe the professional growth that people in an area of the business were undergoing. After the meeting, the leader received numerous angry and upset calls stating that the word "blossoming" wasn't a "business word" and that he shouldn't have used it.
A few years ago, as I started writing The Kind Leader, I remembered that experience and did some research into the words most commonly used to describe "good" leadership (and leaders). Words you would find if you took MBA courses, and in well-known leadership books and magazines. What I found were words like empowering, fearless, original, passionate, strategic and goal-oriented. Of course, kindness wasn't among them.
As I did research, (and reflection on my own experiences in leadership and with leaders), here is what stood out to me about why people don't think that the words kind and leadership can go together.
Kindness is equated with weakness. And leaders need to be strong. Over and over again, people said to me, "If I'm kind to people, they won't do what I want them to do" or "People will will see me as weak, and take advantage of me...or walk all over me". The funny thing about this, is that it's really just the opposite! It takes a huge amount of strength to be kind! Especially in situations in which targets haven't been met, in which deadlines are tight and people are emotional. Holding people to account without demeaning them as people, and helping diverse groups of people get along and work together respectfully takes a huge amount of strength. As a leader, it takes strength to model acting, thinking and speaking kindly when you are frustrated so that others will learn how to do it. And it takes a huge amount of strength to apologize when you are wrong.
Kindness is for kids...and the people who work for leaders aren't children and don't want to be treated like children. There are a couple of really strange underlying myths here. The first is that teaching kindness to children will insure that they grow up to be kind adults. When you look around you, and see the unkind, bad behavior by many adults, including business and political leaders, you'll see that that is untrue. The second is that kindness isn't something that can/should be taught and learned at work. But that is totally incorrect. Since most adults spend more time at work than anywhere else, it's the perfect place for them to learn and practice kindness. And because there are so many situations in which people have to work together towards common goals, are in complicated and complex interpersonal situations and can easily frustrated, work is the perfect place to teach and practice kindness. Then, when workers go home, they will bring what they have learned about how to be kind back home to their family and out into the community.
Kindness is "feminine" and it's just for women. And most leaders are men. This isn't just an assumption based on a stereotype. Research shows that "Showing sensitivity and concern for others - stereotypically feminine traits - made someone less likely to be seen as a leader...however, it's those same characteristics that make leaders effective."(Katie Badura and Emily Grijalva, 2018. p. 8 The Kind Leader) One of the things that I have noticed is that most of the readers of my posts, and the people who join the classes I give on Kind Leadership (paid and free) are women. And most of the questions that I get about "being walked all over" or "taken advantage of" or being "seen as weak" if being kind, come from men. Because more business leaders are men (almost 70 percent as shared in The World Economic Forum's 2022 Global Gender Gap Report) continuing on with this stereotype will lead to further unkindness. The problem can't just be solved with increasing women in leadership positions, it needs to be solved through men understanding that kindness isn't just for kids and/or women, it's for them. Because unless they learn to lead with kindness, we'll all work and live in an unkind world.
Kindness is about others...and leaders often focus on themselves first. Many people have a hard time putting the words "kind" and "leadership" together, because leaders often put themselves first, and kindness requires putting other first. Thinking that people will take advantage of you, or see you as weak falls right in line. If you are worried that people aren't going to "do what you need them to" if you treat them kindly, you are also worried about yourself. And what might happen to you if the deadlines you have that are dependent on the work of others aren't met.
In today's "work world" the words kind and kindness may not be thought of as "business" words and words that describe leaders and leadership. But they need to be.
Because until they are, people will be treated unkindly at work. And they will have leaders at work, and in the wider community that model unkindness. Children will learn to be unkind when their parents come home from work and act and speak unkindly to them. Then will grow up and go to work and experience that same unkindness.
Kind Leaders and Kind Leadership are what we need to change the world for the better and kinder. Using the words kind and kindness to describe leadership style needs to be normalized starting right now.
So, next time someone challenges you about using the words
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