What does a kind leader look like? And how can you spot them? That’s what I’m thinking about a lot at the moment.
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’. In his book ‘Kind. The quiet power of kindness at work’ Graham Allcott describes this as the myth that being a bastard is how you succeed in business.
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.
I wholeheartedly disagree with this view. Kindness is powerful because it connects us. It creates bonds, trust and collective action that gets results. So I also believe that it is an important attribute for successful leaders.
Why do kind leaders matter?
Here’s just a few of the studies that have found benefits of kind leadership:
- A study by the Harvard Business Review showed that leaders who expressed kindness found difficult conversations and providing uncomfortable feedback easier (due to the relationships they’d built up)
- A study for the University of Warwick found kindness increased happiness and happier people ended up 12% more productive than less happy people
- A study in Canada found that kind behaviours being encouraged at work led to a 20% performance improvement compared to organisations where this wasn’t happening
(Thank you to Graham and his book for these stats – I’d highly recommend you read the book in full to find out more.)
Kind leaders are many things but crucially, in this context, kind leaders get the job done.
What do kind leaders look like?
Kindness in leaders shows up in all sorts of ways. Fundamentally it’s about putting people first. It’s about genuinely valuing them, listening to them and connecting with them. This creates an environment of trust and mutual connection that allows you to work collectively, even during difficult times.
It also means having difficult conversations and holding people accountable (having first established clarity about the end goal and your team’s role in that). Being kind is not the same as just being nice.
Over the last few years, we have shared the stories of several kind leaders through the Time for Kindness programme and these are always well received. If you need some of that positivity, have a read:
A leader who led a restructure with kindness
A leader who prioritised kindness when a team member had a family emergency
A leader (me) who checked that a team member felt genuinely included
What do we need to do?
I started up the Time for Kindness programme because I believe there is lots of kindness in the world, we just don’t talk about it enough – yet!
What that means in the space of leadership, is that there aren’t enough stories shared about people who lead with kindness. Those leaders are out there, but they’re not visible enough. Two of the issues that this causes:
- A lack of hope related to the impact of the unkind leaders we have. Their approach seems negative, self-serving and destructive to a positive way forward for us as a collective. The fear that if you’re not ‘in their gang’, you will be left behind.
- A lack of visible positive role models for anyone who wants to lead differently. It seems that the only way to be a successful leader is to follow this negative blueprint. Many people coming into leadership roles don’t feel comfortable with that, it doesn’t sit true with who they are. But the message they get for how you’re ‘supposed’ to lead is often this negative one.
But there ARE leaders out there who are leading with kindness, in all sorts of ways. And we need to tell their stories more often and more loudly.
We need to shout about them from the roof-tops.
We need to show these role models are there.
We need to inspire future leaders and give ourselves hope.
An action for you to take
In the coming weeks and months, I’m going to run a campaign through Time for Kindness to amplify the stories of kind leaders. If you know one, get in touch and tell us what makes them so kind; or talk about them on social media, tag Time for Kindness and tag them if they’re on social media. Ask your network to tell us about the leaders they know too.
Together we can change the conversation about leadership.
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