Leading With Kindness:
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3 reasons to be an Ardern and not a Putin.
In the hyperconnected world of today, it’s hard to watch world leaders in action and not draw lessons from their leadership styles, especially when those styles are becoming so extreme.
On the one hand we have the likes of Vladimir Putin and Jair Bolsenaro, authoritarian leaders and strongmen, a recent study of which found they were less trustful and altruistic and less emotionally stable compared to less authoritarian types. On the other hand, are leaders like Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, who has become something of a poster child for empathy and kindness.
Kindness, says Ardern, is the secret sauce that enables leaders to be empathetic to the circumstances of others. “If we focus only on being seen to be the strongest, most powerful person in the room, then I think we lose what we’re meant to be here for. It takes courage and strength to be empathetic and I’m a proudly empathetic leader.”
Most of us will have experienced both kinds of leaders in our time, either directly or indirectly, and we may have our own opinions about what works best. But it’s the latter style that is gaining more credence in the world today .
Empathy matters more now than ever before, in politics and in business. It may once have been dismissed as a ‘soft’ skill but, says Forbes Coaches Council member Paul Glover, “most managers will acknowledge that empathy, the ability to temporarily see a situation from another person’s perspective, is a powerful leadership tool that, when used appropriately, eliminates individual and team negativity”.
Empathy needs to be underpinned by emotional intelligence to maintain balance. Poor performance, for example, should be properly managed rather than pandered to out of an over-inflated sense of empathy, as this can lead to collateral damage.
Empathic leaders are well placed to resolve conflict, foster trust and cooperation between team members and, in turn, boost morale and create improved business outcomes. Here are three ways you can inject empathy into your management style.
1. Know thyself
We live in a world in which a host of distractions are eating away at our attention and our connections with each other. As Sally Susman , Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer and Vice Chair of The Pfizer Foundation asks: “When was the last time you had a conversation without one of the people involved checking their phone or multitasking? We run from one thing to the next without reflecting on the human implications of what we just did, eroding our workplaces, societies and economies in the process.”
Leading in a human-centric way is all about truly connecting with people by making them feel seen and heard, and in the process creating the conditions in which teams can thrive and prove effective as collective units. It requires authenticity, empathy, adaptivity and self-awareness and you can’t have any of those without first slowing down and paying deliberate attention to yourself and to others.
Organisational psychologist Tasha Eurich says there are two types of self-awareness . The first, internal self-awareness, refers to how we see ourselves: Our values, passions, aspirations, reactions and how we perceive our impact on others.
The second type, external self-awareness, refers to our understanding of how others view us. Leaders who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking the perspectives of others on board.
It's tempting to value one type of self-awareness over the other, says Eurich, when in fact leaders should actively work on both understanding themselves and understanding how others see them.
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2. Have some R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
At its core, empathy is about respect for others, and leaders need discipline to cultivate this key attribute. Sherry Turkle, Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management and author of The Empathy Diaries , has identified four empathy rules.
First, the ability to embrace not knowing is required to foster emotional and social well-being. We are trained to relate to others by expressing what we think we share with them, says Turkle, when what we ought to be doing is keeping quiet and listening. “It’s not what you know but what you are willing to learn that provides space for empathy.”
Second, we need to embrace radical differences. It’s not about reassuring others that “I’m like you,” which is where many people are tempted to go in order to put another (and maybe themselves) at ease. But instead, it’s important to be able to accept a degree of friction and difference. It’s about full engagement, even when things are uncomfortable.
Turkle’s third rule, embracing commitment, involves doing what is necessary to understand both the place the person is coming from and the problem they are experiencing. It is, she says, all about respect. “You have a stake in helping your neighbour. You can’t get bored or turn away.”
The fourth rule, embracing community, refers to the sense of belonging created when you feel that you have been heard, and the rules you have been asked to follow take your situation into account.
3. Ask, don’t tell
In his book Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling , the late Edgar Schein, a former Professor Emeritus at MIT, together with his son Peter Schein, a strategy consultant, pull the curtains back on how humility can build trust, foster collaboration and improve communication.
Inspired by Edgar’s decades-long experiences in high-hazard industries and the health-care system where honest communication can, literally, be the difference between life and death, humble inquiry is, “the gentle art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building relationships based on curiosity and interest in the other person.”
The act of telling puts a person down. It implies that the person does not already know what you are telling them. In contrast, asking temporarily transfers power to the person being asked and makes the asker vulnerable in the context of that transaction. It implies that the person being asked already knows something that the asker needs to know, too.
Only by putting ego aside and replacing professional distance with personal connection, curiosity and humility, can leaders build the trust needed to work together effectively.
Understanding the viewpoints, lived realities and context of others are superpowers in any leader’s toolkit. As Turkle points out, empathic leadership makes room for intimacy and honesty, driving innovation and engagement and those who believe there’s no room for empathy at work run the risk of alienating themselves from those they are tasked to manage.
Linda Buckley is Head of Learning Experience and Executive Education Director at Henley Business School Africa. This article is based on her Master’s Degree in Leadership thesis.