October 13th is World Kindness Day, which made me think about kindness in relation to the workplace.
When working with businesses, I gain exposure to various management styles and work cultures — and kindness isn’t usually the first thing that springs to mind in their overall plan for success. That’s not to say that I work with unkind people. However, kindness doesn’t typically appear on the list alongside customer satisfaction, strategic planning, and financial management — all of which are clearly important components of a successful business.
Kindness can be viewed as a weakness by some. However, according to an article by Benjamin Laker, kindness is about doing — it’s action-oriented. Unlike compassion, which requires someone to be in distress, or empathy, which requires understanding, kindness is proactive. Forbes notes that kind leaders are not permissive or weak — they still make tough decisions and hold people accountable, but they do so with fairness, respect, and with the best interests of their people in clear sight.
A survey by Kindness.org and Beekman 1802 found that kindness is more strongly correlated with workplace happiness than income. Feeling valued and having purposeful work also came up as major contributors to happiness. When people feel respected and cared for by leaders or colleagues, engagement goes up, burnout goes down, and productivity improves. Kind leadership has been shown to reduce staff turnover, increase loyalty, and build more resilient teams.
Kindness also has a ripple effect. Even minor, everyday acts (e.g., saying thank you, showing appreciation, helping someone) tend to spread — encouraging more kindness, improving morale, and lowering stress. Kindness helps foster psychological safety, allowing people to take risks, admit mistakes, and collaborate more freely.
Perhaps take a look at The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation: www.randomactsofkindness.org/the-kindness-blog
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