It seems to me that the leaders we most often hear about (particularly in politics and in business) are the ones that follow what I think of as the ‘scary monster’ mould. They are very often loud, aggressive, tough, ‘strong’.
These types of leaders scorn anything that they perceive as weakness. And kindness is something that, if they allowed themselves to talk about it, they would deride as weak, fluffy and not a behaviour for a successful leader.
So I’ve decided to run a campaign to highlight the stories of kind leaders. The ones who recognise that kindness is a strength, not a weakness. That behaving in ways that bring kindness to their organisations makes them more successful, not less.
As well as giving us more hopeful and positive stories, these examples can inspire current and aspiring leaders to bring more kindness into their own leadership too.
This week I’m sharing the conversation I had with Ruth Meredith, Chief Executive of Lives Set in Motion CIC. This blog gives you my top takeaways; head over to our Time for Kindness YouTube channel to listen to the whole chat.
I really enjoyed chatting to Ruth about the way that she leads, both at her organisation and in her personal life. Her insights about kindness included reference to Vikings, Sandhurst military academy and her experiences as a teenaged wheelchair user.
Leading the way
Ruth started by explaining to me that she had been the first toddler to have powered mobility as a disabled child and was fully integrated in mainstream education right from the start.
I’ve been a pioneer for longer than I’ve been a leader
“So I’ve been a pioneer for longer than I’ve been a leader,” she said. People have always looked to her for answers and she’s taken that forward throughout her life.
Since she has to get other people to help her with the things that she can’t do, she realised early on that there were 2 ways to achieve that:
- either be demanding about your rights and entitlement, or
- make people want to give you those things.
Ruth has always chosen the way of building relationships, trust and connection.
Key points of our conversation
We covered a lot of ground in our conversation, but for me some of the stand out points were:
- Kindness is about empathy and connection. If you’re vulnerable you need to protect yourself. You can do that by building loyalty and trust, so that you know they are with you and will help you (and follow you as a leader).
- Kindness is strong because sometimes it’s difficult. It’s easy to love somebody you like or who makes you feel good. But loving somebody who is incredibly difficult is much harder. Being kind is not always the easy choice.
- A lot of kindness is simply in communication. You can be incredibly kind in the way that you deliver a message by being honest, truthful and demonstrating respect. Giving a fair presentation of a situation allows the other person to make informed decisions about their own actions.
- Creating psychological safety is important as a leader because when you’re asking someone to follow you, you’re asking them to take a risk.
- There is kindness in getting to know the individual. And recognising that although there might be patterns in the way humans work, each one is their own unique self.
What next?
- To listen to the full 10-minute conversation I had with Ruth, 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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