What Kindness Is Not
September 23, 2008
Excerpted from "Chapter One: What Kind Leaders Do" of "Leading With Kindness"
By William F. Baker and Michael O'Malley
No, kindness is not a word that spontaneously comes to mind when we think of business, and its acceptance as a workplace virtue is made more quaint by highly salient experiences we have all had with loathsome, capricious bosses who somehow manage to escape detection and, inexplicably, ascend the corporate ladder. The quality we have singled out for study, then, is not an obvious one. Before proceeding further, however, let us briefly say what kindness is not, in order to clear up some common misconceptions. As a Latin proverb suggests, giving an account of what something isn’t helps to clarify what it is.
There Is More to Personality than Kindness
Leaders exhibit many qualities besides kindness. It is, for example, possible to be hard-nosed and kind, to be cantankerous and kind, to be analytical and kind, or to be gregarious and kind. Kindness comes packaged with many other traits. Thus, leaders' own unique qualities give them a distinctive style. We assert that kindness is part of a good leader's constitution and that others are able to brush aside some of the other qualities that leaders possess in order to see their compassionate centers. Therefore, many different types of people are kind.
We believe that the endless, and tiresome, search for the perfect leadership personality is terribly misguided and ultimately fails to explain what leaders really do and what makes them effective. It is best to think of kindness as a key ingredient in a robust stew. The character of the stew is defined by all of the ingredients in combination, but omit just this one and the fine flavor is lost.
Kind Leaders Aren't Sissies
Part of the problem is that often when we think of people who are kind, they are sometimes overly so—and too much of a good thing is harmful. These individuals are indulgent and naïve; their benevolence is often the target of calculating, homoeconomicus looking for a free ride or easy gain. By kind, we do not mean sucker or pushover. Nor do we imply a warmly permissive leader whose underlings run wild.
Kindness, like many other traits, has an optimal level that makes it a virtue as opposed to a vice. Too little or too much transforms it into something ugly or suspect. Too much courage can make one foolhardy, too much pride can make one haughty, too much politeness can make one officious, too much love can make one covetous, and too much kindness can make one a dupe.
Kindness Is Not the Same as Likability
Kindness doesn't preclude a full range of expression, including, at times, displeasure, nor should it be interpreted as excessive amicability. Compare it to the relationship between a parent and child; kindness implies an interpersonal closeness and fondness, but it comes with other baggage. It requires mutual responsibilities that a day at the beach with a buddy does not. This is because parenting goes well beyond common courtesy, the sharing of intimacies, and companionship.
At any given time, a parent can plummet in the likability ratings faster than a discredited televangelist. Parents are supervisors who manage their children with some of the same modus operandi as businesses: There are daily responsibilities and performance expectations that are to be executed and met by people with different capabilities, motives, and temperaments. Every day, like it or not, parents are called upon to get the job done. Whereas evaluations of likability may ebb and flow, it is hard to imagine succeeding in this or any interpersonal endeavor without the presumption of kindness to motivate our best intentions and to temper our worst impulses.
As in business, it often is possible for parents to get results without much skill. It is always possible to make people do things through threats of punishment and brute force. But those parents who repeatedly rely upon such measures would hardly be described as "good." Even if such tactics never quite reached the level of abuse, the one-dimensional style is the stuff of satire. Getting results in its various forms is not the sole criterion for parental (or managerial) success. Even so, results fed on a strict diet of fear are fleeting. Children, like employees, are discriminating and know when they are beyond the vigilance and control of others, free to do their own thing (or, in extreme cases, get even)—sometimes in spite of themselves. The goal of leadership is never really to just get results, but to increase the value of the company over time using agreeable means.
The Benefits and Necessity of Kind Leaders
Before we more fully probe what we mean by kindness, let’s first consider the effects we want any method of leadership to yield: positive results, to be sure. We would hate for "He's got a great personality" to become a euphemism for poor performance. Additionally, there are four outcomes we think any company would happily endorse.
• Each person works to his maximum capabilities with little slippage in effort over time.
• Each person's capabilities, including moral awareness and aptitude, develop and become more refined over time.
• Each person is willing to exercise her abilities to the fullest in the absence of any immediate contingencies.
• Each person shares a mutual obligation to foster both the personal growth of one another and the collective welfare of the group.
Regardless of whether we are at home or at work, we prize particular qualities in those entrusted with the care of others. These are qualities that can bring out the very best in others by helping them to recognize their unique talents, hone their skills, deliver exceptional—perhaps at times surprising—performance, and remain engaged in the life of the community. Put in this way, leadership, parental, civic, or corporate, doesn't sound so easy and constitutes much more than making decisions on behalf of others and giving orders. Indeed, those leaders who equate leadership with unilateral decision-making and power grossly misunderstand the give-and-take realities of social life and collective action. In order for companies to improve, the people of the organization have to become smarter and more resourceful and work together more effectively over time. For this to occur, people actually have to care about their work, the company, and one another. This requires the expert orchestration of a kind leader.
It has become fashionable lately to envision organizations as amorphous organic entities, along the lines of cells floating in a Petri dish. Each cell—the anthropomorphic person—has its unique code and knows what to do and miraculously combines with other cells to produce higher-order results than one cell could achieve alone. If there is any guidance, it is divine. Self-organization is viewed as a natural process that arises from a few underlying rules and laws, like geese forming a "V" shape to reduce wind resistance and maintain visual contact.
There is no shortage of rhetoric on leaderless groups or, what amounts to the same thing, groups in which everyone is equally conceived as a leader. True, many people are called upon at different times to assume greater authority; we are reminded of Charles Handy's comparison of leadership to the roles and duties found within a rowing crew—who's in charge depends on whether the boat is on or off the river, or whether the crew is racing or training.11 But the presumption of leaderless or, more accurately, leader-ful groups tends to marginalize the role of one person in charge of it all. It also either fails to recognize or cleverly sidesteps a few simple truths.
• First, most social organizations have some form of hierarchy in which one person has a greater authority than others.
• Second, social organizations contain webs of complex relationships among members who have various talents.
• Third, the people with the authority over the group and with the accountability to achieve specific outcomes must figure out how to best nurture, combine, and use the talents of the group.
• And, fourth, the collective ability of the group must improve with time in order to adapt to new challenges—it has to continuously evolve into a qualitatively better operating unit and effectively react as circumstances change: Put succinctly, the group must learn and develop, and it is up to the leader to make that happen.
Even well-meaning, energetic people at times are unable to spontaneously ignite, and a very good reason why a leader is needed in most situations is to light the fuse. Everyone periodically suffers from inertia or self-doubt, is seduced into following an errant course, or becomes distracted. Leaders are needed because we cannot perform optimally without them. It takes a leader with unique abilities to achieve superior results, and we refer to this homogeneous collection of abilities as "kindness."
© 2008 William F. Baker and Michael O'Malley. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
This excerpt was published with permission from AMACOM. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association. For more on this title, visit www.leadingwithkindness.com.
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