“My religion – is kindness” ~ the Dalaï Lama
In this short phrase, the Buddhist leader simplifies his philosophy.
The greatest business leaders I have ever known and worked with are always kind and I will never work with any who ever stray from this anchor.
Kindness also allies with bravery and often takes strength.
One point I wish to make clear is that kindness often means making the toughest decisions early and decisively, but all kindness in doing so is lost if we fail to also act at such times with deep empathy.
#OpenLeadership means being both Brave and Hungry as well as Open and Humble.
Perhaps in those attributes, I could be more clear by adding kindness and empathy, but I sense I omitted them as these are, to me, basics without which nothing else really matters.
I share my thoughts to make clear that there are many business leaders out there who are kind and lead kind organisations (I work with them every day).
Kindness is always a choice.
I wrote these words this week in a post on LinkedIn, where I added my thoughts to a post sharing an article entitled: “The future of leadership is kindness“.
Here I shall share some earlier posts around this theme from this blog, as If a point is worth making, it is worth repeating.
Before doing so, though, let me add further emphasis to the point about being kind in making and implementing tough decisions.
I have had the great good fortune of working with amazing leaders who have had to make tough decisions. Perhaps no greater example was during the first year of the Covid pandemic, where scaling back often took the form of furloughs or even rounds of redundancies, sometimes closing down businesses or divisions.
It matters not how tough the decision is, a leader can always choose to be kind, to have empathy and understanding, and to act with care.
So, for your Saturday, sharing a few past articles around the theme of Kind Leadership: