Kind Leader

<p>Kindness and leadership aren’t often synonymous. Ask someone to describe good leadership to you and you will hear many adjectives used: authentic bold challenging charismatic decisive empowering fearless goal-oriented humble inspiring original passionate role-model strategic and transparent to name of a few. And though there are many more that come to mind kindness isn’t one of them. And here’s the problem with that. </p><p>Leaders lead. And the way a leader leads – how they do what they do – influences those they lead. From the president of the country to the president of a company from middle managers right down to front-line supervisors what a leader models – how they think speak and act – influences the people they lead. Leaders who think speak and act unkindly give legitimacy and permission to those they lead to think speak and act in exactly the same unkind ways. Today in a world where a leaders’ words and actions travel quickly through social media channels such as Twitter their influence – unkind or kind – is amplified through repeated views and sharing. In an increasingly fragmented polarized and divided world we need leaders who will bring people together not divide them. Leaders who value and model cooperation and collaboration over competition. And who model ways to think kindly speak kindly and act kindly. We need kindness to become synonymous with good leadership. So that when someone is asked to describe the traits of a good leader kindness will be the first word that comes to mind. </p><p>Essentially the purpose of this book is to teach leaders how to lead with kindness so they can influence the people they lead to create kinder workplaces organizations and the world. Each chapter contains a mixture of theory case studies and reflections from leaders and the people they influence. As well the book follows the fictional stories of Kay’La Janson and Kevin Landrell as they become leaders in a failing organization that is ultimately turned around through kind leadership. Between chapters there are a series of practical exercises based on concepts presented in the previous chapter with space to record outcomes and reflections on the practice process. </p><p>This book gives you a deep theoretical understanding of the importance of leading with kindness and also provides practical exercises for you to use to turn theory into practice. Because change means doing things differently and because we only really learn by doing to create kinder organizations kinder communities and a kinder world leaders must be able to begin practicing kindness right away. By the time you finish the book you will feel confident in your ability to lead with kindness and also to address organizational problems at work at home and in the community with kindness.</p>