The Power of Kindness | Power Theory 005

If you're a leader or manager and you're modeling this kindness and this grace, you're a safe person to go talk to. You're a safe person to collaborate with. By the way, kindness and grace does not mean being easy on people. Constructive feedback is actually a kind thing to do. You know, sometimes we think about feedback as a negative thing. But when you go back and look in your life, those critical moments with somebody giving you constructive feedback, how do I want to show up in this meeting? These are the reasons why people leave. Was I being kind or was I being wimpy or what? I want people to accept me for who I am. At the root of it, it just feels good. Hi. Welcome back to power theory. My name is Russ Willette. I'm an executive coach and organizational consultant, and my mission is to help people find their personal agency and power and confidence to be extraordinary leaders. Today we're going to talk about the power of kindness, and, you know, how it shapes how you feel and how it can be good for your own personal well being. We're also going to take some user questions about resentment, jealousy, and competitiveness. My wife has a sign in the house that says, russ, it's important to be kind now. I'm not a bad person. I am a kind person. I try to be a kind person. I'm a human being, and I get frustrated, and I get frustrated at work, and I get frustrated with clients, and I get frustrated in situations. And what she means by that is that there really is personal well being and being kind. In other words, you can be kind for other people. I certainly want to do that. But being kind to other people also feeds yourself and really creates a very strong sense of well being and awareness for yourself. Neuroscience and psychology tells us that being kind has an impact on our wellbeing. So without getting into the science, there's really a lot of research that shows that kindness is good and makes us feel good, but is it always really practical? So let me just give you a couple stories. One story I like to tell is the. It's actually kind of a sad story, but I was backing out of a driveway when, as I was backing out of the driveway, I cut somebody off, and this very large man in a big cadillac convertible starts yelling and screaming and cursing at me. And my first reaction was not to get scared. My first reaction was I got really mad and I got mad at myself. And the reason why I got mad at myself is I know that somebody got killed in that very same driveway in the past. So my brain automatically went to that situation, and I got mad. So I turned around and looked at the person that was in this big car, and, you know, who clearly might get out and punch me. And I just waved my hand and said, I'm sorry. And it was like the whole vibe changed. He kind of. He kind of just put his hands down and drove off, and that was the end of the situation. So was I being kind, or was I being wimpy or what? In that moment, that situation created an awareness of me, that I could control the situation by how I behaved and the things that I could do. I'm standing at a event, and I noticed that there's this young person who's having a hard time connecting, is a little awkward, feels a little uncomfortable, and he's standing over by himself during the presentation, we're all. It's kind of intimate. It's like we're all standing around, and this person's talking, and it's a meaningful event, and this person is standing off by himself. And what I did was I. At first, I'm thinking, well, who is this guy to be here? And I'm finding myself getting annoyed about why he's in the room, which, you know, I apologize, but I'm a human being, and I'm feeling annoyed that that person's there. And I looked over at him, and I waved him over, and I said, come stand with us. Now what happened? He comes over to stand with us. And right away, I felt so good. And after the speech was over, I went over to him, and I spent some time with him, and I got to talk to him, and I got to know him. So the kindness really made my frustration disappear. I was asked to give a speech at a march of dimes event. I was actually the chair of that event, and I had to give the speech that helped people reach in their wallets and donate money. And I had practiced this a lot. And the thing is, is that when I give emotional speeches, I will break down. I have a hard time controlling my emotions. And I practiced and I practiced and I practiced, and I tried to put words in there that wouldn't trigger me. I did everything I possibly could to get through the speech. And I got up. I had a whiskey before I went up there, so I would calm down. I tried to picture everybody with no clothes on. I did all the tricks you do in a speech when you don't want to get emotional. And I got in there. I got up there, and, of course, I started talking, and I started to break down, and I'm looking around the room, and I'm embarrassed. This mission is really important. I really want to make sure we raise money. And I noticed that this guy got up who was kind of like an athletic guy, man's man. He gets up, he goes over to the table, he grabs a glass of water and walks up and hands me the glass of water in front of all, in front of these 200 people. I thanked him, I drank the water, and I went through my speech, and I was fine. And, you know, that act of kindness was powerful to me. It really just kind of, it set me straight. It made me feel included. It made me feel that this guy's looking out for me. I mean, it was just really, really powerful. And by the way, we raised more money than we ever did in the past. So how does this apply to your career, your workplace, or your leadership? Well, first of all, people do not leave jobs. We've talked about this before. People don't leave jobs for the money. They leave the money because of the sociology, because they don't fit in the culture. They don't like their boss. They're not communicating well. These are the reasons why people leave. So culture and sociology is critically important. And in those organizations, people need to feel safe, and kindness allows people to feel safe. And so how do we make people feel safe? Well, first of all, not being annoyed, so being totally aware of how you're feeling in a situation, using your emotional intelligence, really kind of tapping into how you're feeling. When that person was standing at that event and I was aggravated about it, I noticed that I was frustrated, and I called them over and I dealt with it. So you have to have total awareness. You should always be practicing total awareness. Sometimes when you walk into the situation, you can just pause and stop and say, how do I want to show up in this meeting? Right when I was at that event, how do I want to show up at this event? I want to show up this event as a kind, you know, as listening and being kind and welcoming everybody. I called the person over. How do I want to show up for this meeting? Ask yourself those questions. That's going to help you with awareness. But if you're sitting in situations and you're feeling bad, then you want to just turn on this awareness and make sure that you're actually, you know, pursuing really good management leadership behaviors. Some of these behaviors are active listening. You want to listen carefully to people. You want them, you want to show them kindness. You want to show them that you care about what they're saying. And you really want to pay attention to what's going on. You want to give recognition and support to people when they need it. If people are having a bad day, you want to help them. You want to reach out. You want to show them some kindness, show them some grace, show them that it's okay, that the situation isn't going exactly the way they want, or that they need to process something. Constructive feedback is actually a kind thing to do. You know, sometimes we think about feedback as a, as a negative thing. But when you go, when you go back and look in your life, those critical moments, it was somebody giving you constructive feedback. Emphasis on constructive, emphasis on non judgment. Emphasis on feedback that's delivered with a sense of care. Right. Care and kindness create safety. If people, if you look around a situation and someone doesn't feel safe in a meeting, you're gonna go out of your way to make them feel safe, even if that means you, you cutting someone else off, that might not be making them feel safe. Creating that safe environment, showing that kindness is gonna brand you as someone who's a safe person and a kind person. That's only gonna help you. Being available to people. You're sitting in your office, you're overwhelmed. You get a deadline, and somebody walks in and they, and they obviously need, need a moment. You want to make yourself available to them. If you spend five minutes with them, you're just creating. The efficiency you're getting out of that for the future is just immense. You want to take the moment. You want to be available to people. You want to accept people for who they are. So someone might be a little awkward. How many times we've been in a situation when someone says, well, yeah, you know, John's a nice guy, but he's an awkward guy. Yeah. So, so what? You know, oh, he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember names or he doesn't. He always takes us down the wrong path. Or he might say the wrong thing in front of the customer. It's all right. You should be able to work through that. That awkwardness is authentic and it's real. And we have to get over the fact, you know, being kind is accepting. I want people to accept me for who I am. I want people to accept me with my flaws. I want people to help me recover when I make a mistake. I want that kindness, and I want that grace, and we need to be able to give it to other people. So accept people for who they are and don't judge them and don't try to change them. Random acts of kindness whenever possible as a leader, as a manager, you know, if there's an opportunity, show up with a coffee, even though you know, there's a coffee machine in the building, go out of your way to make a phone call for them or connect them with somebody else or send them a video or whatever it is you want to do. That kindness matters. During COVID I remember getting a call from a really close colleague who I should have on the show at some point, Kevin Hallenbach, who runs a Sandler sales franchise. You know, during COVID all of a sudden I got a call from him saying, hey, Russ, I just wanted to say hi to you. How's it going? Now? I know he's going through his list, and he probably has me on a list that he's going to call, call people once in a while to check in with him as part of his Sandler sales stuff, but it was, it was authentic. How's the family? How you holding up? What's going on? Dan Scanlon, a real estate, commercial, real estate leader, also did this same thing. You know, that, that kindness meant so much to me that someone was just calling me to see how I was doing and what was going with the family. I'm not saying you have to call people. I'm just saying these are visible acts of kindness and they were completely meaningful to me. When you practice kindness and when you practice grace and when you practice safety with people, you're attracting other people to you. You're a safe person to go talk to. You're a safe person to collaborate with. You're someone who is, you know, is going to look at a situation without judgment and is going to, you know, offer respect and kindness. So people are going to be attracted to you automatically. You're modeling what you expect others to behave. If you're a leader or manager and you're modeling this kindness and this grace, I'm not saying, by the way, kindness and grace does not mean being easy on people. It doesn't mean not holding them accountable. It just means that you're going to be fair and kind and the deliberations that you pursue, you're modeling that for other people, and people are going to share and repeat those behaviors because they like them and they're attracted to them. You're going to build your own social confidence and you're going to build the social confidence of others. If people leave jobs because of sociology, what better way than to build your own social strengths and other social strengths by being kind. And at the root of it, it just feels good. When I called that colleague over in that meeting, it felt good when I show up with a cup of coffee for someone or I send a card for someone in need or make a phone call to just check in on somebody. Recently I had a friend who was going through a really tough career transition. Now, I mean, I could help them with that professionally, but that wasn't why what was going on. I don't want to reach out to people when they're going through that because I don't want to stick my nose in because of professional reasons. But I told another friend that I wanted you to have him call me so I can talk to him about. He ended up calling me a couple days ago. I spent an hour on the phone with him and I think it meant the world to him. And that's just, you know, just kindness, just being kind to another human being. Look for these opportunities as much as you can and, you know, offer it to other people. When you see someone screw up, the first thing you should do is acknowledge that you understand that there's a mistake and don't go at it with them. The first thing you want to do is acknowledge that you understand what happened and make them feel safe in that mistake. That's how you're going to get them back on track and back to feeling strong. There's a fundamental belief that my leadership philosophy is, and that is that I'm going to. If I practice respect, I can solve all problems. Respect to me is powerful. If I can respect other people and practice respect, I'm going to help them. I'm going to help them solve their problems, and I'm going to help solve problems in the organizations I work with. I also practice care, meaning I have a certain care and responsibility for care when I'm working with people or a team or a situation. And the third thing is kindness. If I can show kindness, and again, it's not. Doesn't mean that I'm not direct or I'm not telling the truth or I'm not giving feedback, but I'm going to do it with kindness. Respect, care and kindness are everything that helps me in my well being, and it helps build well being within other cultures. So we have a user question. Let me read it. I'm not a competitive person, but sometimes I get jealous when I see others succeed, when they don't deserve it. I know it isn't healthy, but how can I manage the feeling of envy and resentment that sometimes arises when I see my competitors outperforming me? Great question. And this is something we probably all suffer at some point. There's a couple of things in here that I want to just address. First of all, someone saying I'm not a competitive person, which also kind of implies that maybe they don't see competing in the political exchange and therefore they've checked out of that competitive environment. So let me just, let me just say there's two kinds of people and there's people that will say, well, I don't practice politics at work at all. I'm just, you know, I do exactly what I'm told and I follow the rules and that's what I do, and I should get ahead that way. And the other people are those that say, oh, politics is a game, the workplace is a game, and therefore I'm competing in that game and I'm going to use the tools that I have to be able to compete. So some people say that they will never be political, and some people say that I practice politics at work. And if you're sitting there thinking, well, I don't practice politics either, Russ. Well, let me just ask you a question. Have you ever gotten a job through someone you know, and if the answer is yes, I've got that through someone I know, that's politics, right. We are living in an environment where we have to compete in some way. So if just outright say I'm not a competitive person and I'm not going to practice social skills that allow me to advance towards my goal, then really you're at a huge disadvantage. And by the way, organizations need people like that that stay in their desk and focus and do their job and do exactly what they're told. But that's, you know, and so, again, there's no judgment about that. But if you're deciding that you're not going to be competitive in the least, then that's already a disadvantage. So now the next thing is, how do I deal with the resentment? How do I, how do I deal with that? Well, one thing is you could, you could accept the fact that you're not going to be competing with these peers because you're, you've decided not to. That's one thing. And just accept that. Like, I am who I am and I'm a good employee and I'm going to do my good job and I'm not going to worry about it. Or you can just kind of dig in and just be part of that team. Everything in life is not about us. It's about, it's about our reflection of ourselves against other people. So I have a partner that I work with. And many years ago, we were in the same business and we were competing to some extent. And she came up to me and said, you know, Russ, I'd like to work with you. And I think that there's enough business that we can share. And I think we don't need to be competing. Why don't we work together? And it was like, powerful. Like right away the guard goes down and right away I'm including her in projects and she's including me in projects. And then we ended up having even still have a great relationship today. So that happened maybe 20 years ago. And that competitive peer turns out to be, you know, a very great ally and friend and partner today. So how are you going to get over the resentment? You almost have to just kind of, I would almost say go and be kind. Go and have a sense of respect. Go and respect what they're doing and ask them to help you and be authentic and just kind of dig in. Now, the initial conversation might be awkward, but I guarantee that if you go to them and say, look it, you know, you're out competing me here, and I'm feeling some resentment, I know that's wrong. You know, how can we work together? How could you know? It's about, it's about forgiving people. It's about accepting them, bringing them in when, when, you know, you don't feel like you want to. The benefit to you is that you're aware of this, and that's the whole game right there. So congrats to you. Move forward. Try to think about exchange as not, or politics or influence is not a competitive game, but that's something we all have to do to reach our goals. But maybe also look at yourself and see where your areas for improvement are. Do you think that's an element? Yes, certainly. If they're out competing you, they might be doing something, you know, materially different on the job. So, yeah, I mean, you certainly should be looking at your own performance. Are you performing at the standards? But as the question implies, it's really got to do about, you know, I'm feeling jealous, I'm feeling envy, I'm feeling resentment to these other people for beating me implies that maybe they're doing all the same stuff. If you're not doing the same, if you're not performing as well as you could, that's a whole other area that you need to work on. You need to be self aware what those shortfalls are and you need to dig into those. So if you liked this podcast, leave a comment, you can also email me [email protected] and we can exchange ideas and thoughts. And also, if I have your email address, I can put you on the newsletter so you know about upcoming videos and events that are going on with sojourn partners. So thanks. See you next time.See all