I delivered a workshop recently on kind and courageous leadership (i.e. my jam!). It was well received, and I was humbled by the feedback shared with me by the event organizer who had continued having kind and courageous conversations with attendees after I had left. My close friends and colleagues will tell me not to be surprised by this sort of fabulous feedback, but I was. Not because I was able to deliver a message well – I have after all been doing this for quite some time – but because kindness, in particular, is not a topic many wish to engage in. This is particularly true when it comes to early childhood leadership development and especially right now during a time of crisis!
Kindness, at least from my viewpoint, could actually be the answer to this crisis though. Not just kindness, but kind leadership. Kind leadership is something that is conceptualized from a business and management sense and people like Sonia McDonald champion this work in corporate sectors and others, like Brene Brown, weave it into the courage space. There is a lot to learn from these pioneering women that we can apply to our amazing sector.
There is some thinking to be done, though. We can’t just take something from other sectors and implement it without reflecting on the theory and what this might mean for us as we work with diverse range of people.
To begin this conversation, I would firstly like to drive home that kindness is not niceness. Niceness is often what people mistake kindness for, but the two ideas are completely different. When you’re nice, the whole situation feels easy. For you. But while you sit in a place of comfortability it may often feel like you’re being taken advantage of. Kindness on the other hand keeps you in a space to help others grow in truly authentic ways. Kindness feels good, but it may also leave you feeling uncomfortable, because to be kind sometimes means making some tough decisions that may not be well liked.
Secondly, kind leadership isn’t a simple road map. Kind leadership won’t give you a direct answer for how to manage your challenges, nor can I provide that to you through my interpretation. What kind leadership can do, though, is help you remove the idea of “perfection” from your leadership practice. Perfection is a barrier. Perfection stops us from taking chances, being brave, and making courageous decisions from places of kindness. Perfection tells us we aren’t good enough (cue imposter syndrome) and that we are wrong. When we replace perfection with kindness, we start to give ourselves permission to make mistakes and to try things we may never have thought possible to begin with. This also creates a sense of balance in our work that gives us space to be human in a people-centric sector.
Finally (for now!), kind leadership challenges the myth of kindness as weakness. Quite the contrary, kindness takes an immense strength - that those in the early childhood sector have in bucket loads! We powered through a pandemic. We are met with what feels like constant change and reform (some we are consulted on, some we aren’t). We face daily challenges in our work simply because we interact with humans, each of whom is a unique individual. What other workforce can brag about how strong they are?! To be kind, to show up, and to make courageous decisions is the ultimate showing of strength, putting to bed the myth that to be kind is to be weak.
Having read all of this, you may be thinking, but SL, how? How do I take this really great idea and put it into action, when I’m tired and my team are stretched to their limits? Surely this isn’t something I can do right now.
Oh, my friend, I feel you! I work with so many services and so many leaders who are literally at breaking point. But that does not mean we cannot harness the power of kindness and commit to a few authentic actions (that you’re likely already taking in some way or other) to positively influence the challenges we work with. I encourage you to try these kind leadership actions:
1. Set clear expectations: Brene Brown said it best, “clear is kind, unclear is unkind”. The very first thing you can commit to doing as a kind leader is to reflect on your expectations of others (and yourself while you’re at it) and make sure that what you’re expecting has been communicated clearly. High expectations are great (and necessary) but if the person you’re expecting greatness from doesn’t know that you expect this, - or hasn’t understood how you would like them to achieve it - then you’re going to find yourself becoming frustrated and with no one achieving their goals. Clarity of expectations will look different for everyone, so it’s best to try a few things and get feedback from your team to find what works best in your context.
2. Give honest feedback: it’s easy as a leader to get caught in a brevity trap. “Good job”, “nice work”, “well done”. This is…fine, but it doesn’t really tell anyone anything about what it is they have done well (or not well – feedback can go both ways of course). When giving feedback, speak from a place of heartfelt truth so that the recipient can make the most of your words and continue to work in a way that meets Step 1 above.
3. Encourage growth: no one wants to be held back, especially at work. As a kind leader we are uniquely placed to be able to encourage all our people to grow, flourish and to reach their fullest potential. Offering opportunities for effective professional learning, time to sit and absorb new information, or cultivating connections and networks are all meaningful ways that we can work kindly to grow our teams. This need not be expensive either: commitment to not just planning time but learning time; a book club using a library book; a network with the kinder across the road; a presentation by a parent in a different field are all wonderful ways to learn and connect that cost next to nothing.
4. Be transparent in your decision-making: I learnt this the hard way. In my last directing position, right at the start of the pandemic, I was responsible for making a lot of very hard decisions (if you were also in a leadership role at the start of the pandemic here in Naarm, Melbourne you will know exactly what I am talking about!). I was making a lot of decisions very quickly and to protect my team I made these behind closed doors. That was one of the biggest mistakes I have made in my career. When my team would experience the outcomes of my decision-making, resentment grew and the workplace plunged into turmoil. One of my team were brave enough to bring the issue to my attention and I quickly changed my ways, switching to make these very hard decisions WITH my team. As a result, team ‘buy-in’ to the necessary changes increased, morale went up, and while we faced some huge challenges none of us would have had it any other way.
5. Treat people like people: above all, as a kind leader we need to remember that we are dealing with people, not machines, and our teams need to be treated as such. Kindness is contagious, it fills buckets, and it helps make the world a better place. Lean into it and I can almost guarantee that your team and service will function better because of it.
I left the attendees of my recent workshop with this statement, and I want to now leave it with you too: let’s build a movement of leaders devoted to kindness and to making the world better for yourself, children, families, each other and the sector.
I’m ready.
Join me.
This blog is a follow up to my short chat with the team at Educator HQ. Listen to it now.
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