Leading with kindness
In our roles as managers, we can feel pressure all around us to perform at peak capacity. We are pushed to make our teams perform well and deliver results. In the business world, we celebrate the brash “leaders” who get things done — but we turn a blind eye to the damage they leave behind.
Considering the impact that different sources of power has on team morale and wellness, we should take a step back and think about what it means to lead with kindness. Does exhibiting kindness suggest we are weak? Or a pushover? Does it mean we can be manipulated into always giving in to our teams’ whims?
Does exhibiting kindness suggest we are weak?
Chinese prisons
In the harsh world of Chinese prisons, Ying Yang and their team of researchers set out to determine if teaching kindness and gratitude to prisoners would have a positive impact. They examined recidivism rates, prisoner affect, and the overall well-being of the prisoners.
As you can probably guess, kindness dramatically improved the lives of the prisoners. While we are hopefully not prisoners of our jobs, the ideas carry forward into what we do. Martin Dufwenberg and Georg Kirchsteiger showed how kindness leads to more kindness — the power of reciprocity.
What does it mean?
Kindness does not mean turning into a doormat for our teams. Instead, it asks us to consider that people are fallible and need guidance at times. Perhaps the job does not highlight their strengths and isn’t a great fit — but that doesn’t mean the person is terrible.
We consistently have hard conversations in our line of work. When we lead with kindness — respect for one another — we grow our softer sources of power. We also model the behavior we expect from our teams. Tina Martel and Carol Brill found a strong correlation between servant leadership styles — leading with kindness, empathy, and compassion — and employee engagement and success.
I’ll leave you with one of Tina and Carol’s thoughts:
In today’s age of mass technology, it has become a unique proposition to relate to others on the basis of serving their needs by relating to their values one-on-one.
Here’s to being unique.
References
Dufwenberg, M., & Kirchsteiger, G. (2019). Modelling kindness. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 167, 228–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2018.07.014
Mertel, T., & Brill, C. (2015). What every leader ought to know about becoming a servant leader. Industrial & Commercial Training, 47(5), 228.
Yang, Y., Zhao, H., Aidi, M., & Kou, Y. (2018). Three good deeds and three blessings: The kindness and gratitude interventions with Chinese prisoners. Criminal Behaviour & Mental Health, 28(5), 433–441. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbm.2085
