By Lily Kelly-Radford
It’s only October, but 2021 can’t come soon enough. Yet even in this most unkind time–toxic politics, social injustice, an insidious pandemic—we can learn much about becoming more kindly leaders.
As the world started hunkering at home last spring, stress went through the ceiling and it was a perfect time to test the power of kindness as a leadership skill.
Peering into our colleagues’ and employees’ homes on video conferences we saw intimate and personal sides of their lives that had been hidden behind the veneer of the office relationship. Now that this wall has been broken, it’s up to each of us to enhance our empathy and emotional intelligence in our interactions with our organizations.
How can we institutionalize kindness? How can we make it systemic?
Much has been written about servant leadership, but to serve requires humility and humanity which we seldom talk about or measure as part of our work performance systems. Why not add these variables to our 360 feedback? Why not make them requirements for leadership?
And there’s a true business benefit here.
Prior to the pandemic, interpersonal effectiveness had never been more important. With hierarchy flattening out, people often find themselves less supervised and more empowered to work in teams as peers, where the only authority is how well you get along.
Add to this our current more tribal and divided mode of political discourse that is affecting day-to-day interactions in a diverse workplace.
Today, the ability to empathize and engage with each other as individual people is not only more pleasant, it’s a career skill. In organizations that rely on collaborative solutions, practicing kindness has shown to improve outcomes. Leaders can help their organizations embody this, model the behavior and teach it for improved individual effectiveness and overall performance.