Kindness has always been essential to leadership. It is how we inspire teams, build relationships and imbue work with purpose. Today, kindness is even more important. The Covid-19 crisis, combined with impassioned social movements that have led us to reassess our core values, has magnified that quality. Kindness defines what an effective, modern leader should be.
As we grapple with these unpredictable times, the skills of a kind leader are even more relevant. To openly show our human side, listening to and acting with others’ needs in mind, meeting people where they are and having the courage to adapt to situations that no one has been prepared for.
Those are some of the findings of this, our second Kindness in Leadership survey, in which our respondents reflect on how valuable kind leadership is to our transformed world.
Organisations that value kindness will come through a crisis more successfully
The accelerated changes we have undergone have led us to a more sophisticated understanding of what true leadership is – that as well as motivating and inspiring, we must nurture and protect, with kindness as the fundamental enabler.
We are working towards a new normal with new values and a new play-book – and it’s the emotional compass of kindness that should be our guide.
Kind leadership during a crisis and beyond
The Hall & Partners team is honoured to be collaborating with Elizabeth Filippouli and the Global Thinkers Forum to understand what makes a leader kind, how this changes during times of crisis, and what is to be expected of leaders moving forward. We are thankful for the consultancy we have received from Dr Marc J Ventresca at Saïd Business School on this project, and we are delighted to once again partner with the Kindness & Leadership Leading Lights campaign to help answer these questions.
