There are lots of kind leaders in the world, we just don’t hear their stories often enough.
So I’m continuing with the Time for Kindness Kind Leaders campaign. Each person that I’ve spoken to about how they bring kindness into the way they lead has brought interesting perspectives and insight.
In a world where the leaders we most often hear about are in the ‘scary monster’ mould of fear-mongering leadership, I’ve found it genuinely refreshing and hopeful to speak to people who are the polar opposite of that view of leadership. Each of them is a successful leader who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk of kindness too.
This week I bring you my conversation with Jaz-Michael King, director of an online bilingual Welsh-English community called Tŵt Cymru and creator of IFTAS, a nonprofit support group for online volunteer community organisers. In this blog I’m sharing my highlights from our conversation and you can listen to the full conversation over on the Time for Kindness YouTube channel.
The person who put Jaz forward as a leader I should speak to described him as “working to create a culture of positivity, and encouraging a nuanced and kind approach to moderation of the [online] community”. During our conversation he shared how and why he adopts this approach.
Key takeaways
The points that stood out most to me:
- Leadership is service not status. The role of a leader is to clear the path for others to make the work lighter.
- Kindness is about speaking honestly and making decisions transparently, holding the humanity of everyone involved at the centre of each interaction. Empathy, consistency and transparency build trust – know why and how decisions were reached is really important to that. Even in the hardest of conversations.
- It’s important to demonstrate through role-modelling how you want others to behave. That’s not about being manipulative, but leading by example.
- Demonstrating kindness is not weak. It’s about sticking to the clarity of your mission, vision and values, maintaining that discipline under pressure. There’s a strength to that.
- Kindness is working to allow room for growth, to allow room for mistake making. Jaz describes himself as a believer that we learn from our mistakes and that’s how we move forward.
He explained:
“I used to tell my teams, make all the mistakes you can, but try not to make the same one twice”.
What next?
- To listen to the full 10-minute conversation I had with Jaz, visit our YouTube channel.
- There are more conversations with kind leaders to come, so follow our channel to be alerted when each one is released.
- Please spread the word about these conversations with your colleagues, friends and family, we all need positive, hopeful examples.
- I’d like to have more of these conversations to share the stories, so get in touch if you’re a kind leader yourself or you know someone who is.
Take care
Sarah
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