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Practicing kindness and compassion is essential for health leaders. Kindness in leadership is treating people in a manner that shows you understand, value and respect them.
Being kind is different from being nice. Both are positive qualities and reflect how we treat others. Nice leaders are polite, agreeable and present a pleasant demeanour. Being nice is often motivated by the need to fit in and meet social expectations. It is more often on the surface, expressed by words and gestures.
Kindness goes deeper. Kindness is motivated by one's genuine care, empathy, and desire to make a positive impact. It is based on one's deeper values - compassion and benevolence towards others. While being nice is expressed by words and gestures, kindness is expressed through actions. One can be a kind leader and still make difficult decisions and get results.
The importance of being a kind leader results in happier workplaces, more successful teams, and more innovative, flexible organizations. Kind leaders build trust, connection, strong relationships and productive teams. Kindness is key to engagement, inclusivity and ultimately performance.
According to an annual study, an organization is five times more likely to be considered innovative if kindness exists in organizational culture and if the company’s leadership style is to lead with kindness. https://dexian.com/humankindex/ The same studies found that kind leadership is important in attracting and retaining talent. In business terms, it's also better for the bottom line - it can increase financial performance and improve quality of care.
In other words, leading with kindness pays off!
So, as my year end gift to the Vernissage Health community, here is my favorite poem about kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye. She writes that cultivating one's appreciation for kindness often comes after adversity, struggle and loss. Only then can one appreciate that day to day kindness is the balm of daily life. Given the suffering in our world today, it seems a fitting poem with which to close 2024.
Before
You know what kindness really is
You must lose things,
Feel the future dissolve in a moment,
Like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
What you counted and carefully saved,
All this must go so you know
How desolate the landscape can be
Between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
Thinking the bus will never stop
The passengers eating maize and chicken
Will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
You must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
Lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
How he too was someone
Who journeyed through the night with plans
And the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
Catches the thread of all sorrows
And you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
Only kindness that ties your shoes
And sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
Only kindness that raises its head
From the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
And then goes with you everywhere
Like a shadow or a friend.
I'll end the year with Thank You. Thank you for being a valued member of the Vernissage Health community and for the leadership you bring to our health system every day! Thanks for continuing to learn and deepen your talents, grow the seeds planted in Vernissage Health, and live its touchstones of leadership and dialogue. Now, more than ever, we need health leaders who are driven by kindness.
For my 2024 cohosts, Isser and Punya, to the Built to Lead Podcast Team and certainly to our established leaders and mentors (too many to name individually) - Merci, Miigwech, Faleminderit Shume and Toda Raba!
May you all stay safe and feel the joy, love and peace of the season! May 2025 bring you happiness and fulfillment!
Warm regards, Wendy
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