The New School for Kind Leaders

Are you a leader working to create positive change?

If so, then what you need to practice and model for those who follow you is consistency and constancy.

Consistency because creating new neural pathways and habits means doing the same thing in the same way, over and over again. And then again.

Constancy because being consistent, doing what’s needed time and time again, takes a huge amount of discipline, and a deep understanding and belief in the thing’s purpose. And that is what constancy is all about:

It’s not easy to practice either (and both) consistency and constancy. So, as a leader, by going first, you’ll also gain empathy for the difficulty those who follow you have in practicing as well.

Consistency, constancy and discipline. Three great practices for you to practice and model.

How did you sleep last night? Did worries about work keep you awake?

If they did, maybe it’s because you feared the unkindness you might experience from leaders if you made a mistake or didn’t live up to their expectations. Or maybe you were worried about overt or covert unkindness from teammates.

Unkindness and unkind leadership can lead to a lot of fear and sleepless nights.

Until kindness is accepted as a necessary part of work and business, the future of work will be pretty awful.

Read more in my latest post:
https://bit.ly/4jWekqq

In unkind times it’s easy to feel stuck and frozen in fear and not know what you, as an individual, can do to create positive change.

Although it might seem counterintuitive, here’s where being you is what’s most important! Because you come with a set of interests, skills and experience different from other people! So, to make the positive contribution only you can, concentrate on using your talents, strengths, skills and passions.

Here are some ideas:

If you like to make art, create images, posters, and stickers that you and others can use to share visual messages to communicate messages. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words!

If you like to write, create messages, posts and newsletter to share with people about how they can make their own unique contributions.

If you are a great motivator, use those skills to get people together to figure out how to respond together.

If you are a great researcher and love to analyze, pull together facts, figures and statistics that people can use to combat misinformation and disinformation.

If you are great at cooking, cook a meal for your neighbors and get people together around the dinner table.

If you enjoy organizing, organize a get together or series of events that brings people together to work for positive change.

If you are a passionate community builder, bring all different kinds of people together and help them figure out what each other unique contributions can be based on who they are.

In these unkind times, it’s our diversity of passions, experiences, and skills combined with our ability to cooperate, collaborate and include many that will allow us to create the strategies to combat unkindness and unkind leadership.

It’s may feel overwhelming, but simply take a deep breath, remind yourself that you are the you that you are because only you can make the contribution needed. This is a time for banding together, for cooperation, for working together. We can solve any and all problems when we bring more people with different strengths together to solve them. You don’t need to do everything. You just need to do your part, in your way.

No need to be stuck or frozen! Think about your unique passions, abilities, talents and skills and take the first step to get started today!

One of the things I always say is that it’s better to prevent a problem than solve one!

So, if your organization is focused on helping your people be more resilient, then perhaps a better strategy would be to focus on kindness!

That’s because kindness prevents the types of things that people might need resiliency to “bounce back” from: being criticized unkindly and publicly, being passed over unfairly for promotion, having an idea “shot down” in a meeting, for example.

When people are treated and spoken to kindly, especially by people in leadership roles, they don’t feel fearful or bad in the first place…so there is nothing to “bounce back from” and no need for being more resilient!

So today, if you find yourself thinking “they just need to be more resilient”…please stop and think to yourself “how can we foster more kindness in our organization so that people don’t need to be so resilient!”

A quick reminder today. There are many ways to reach the goals you have, whether they be at work, at home, in the community or in the world.

But just reaching a goal, hitting a target, isn’t the only - or most important - thing.

How you get there, how you reach that goal or hit that target, is just as - or even more - important.

That’s because the actions you take and the words you choose to use while pursuing those goals and targets affect others. And they can affect them in negative or positive ways.

They can make others work and live in fear, feel demeaned and excluded. They can make others feel unappreciated and small and without hope.

Or, they can bring people together for the common good. Allow people to truly be themselves and make the unique contributions only they can make. Your words and actions can help people learn and grow and create positive change that will be felt for generations to come.

We all have goals and targets. And each of us has a choice about how we go about accomplishing them. Every day. Every minute. Every second.

Please choose ways that don’t just have positive outcomes for you…but that affect others in a kind, positive way.

"Kind Leaders are the best kind of leaders because they work to reduce and eliminate fear and create trust by including and bringing people together in positive ways!" Karyn Ross

In response to unkind leadership trends, in 2021 I published my sixth book, The Kind Leader: A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust and Leading with Kindness. I thought that now would be the perfect time to reintroduce it. A practical guide, it's filled with theory, exercises to complete to practice acting, reacting, speaking and thinking kindly, and the stories of twenty eight kind leaders from a variety of different sectors.

There are so many myths about why kindness and leadership can't go together. But they are simply myths. Kindness isn't weakness. It takes unbelievable strength to consider others needs. Kind leaders are adept at addressing gaps to targets and communicating those gaps to team members, in a kind way so that they can hear the feedback and improve. And kind leaders create spaces where people can bring their unique talents, experiences and ideas to cooperate and collaborate.

Kind leaders understand that "How we get there is just as (or even more) important than where we are going."

Please share this post with others and lead with kindness...even when others are not.

Here’s the link to purchase: https://bit.ly/3hrAX8g

“If people weren’t afraid of being treated unkindly (especially by their leaders) they wouldn’t feel fear.” And, “When people are afraid, they are more likely to act, speak and think unkindly.”
- Karyn Ross

The “Vicious Circle of Fear” is a key concept of my book, The Kind Leader: A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust and Leading with Kindness, which I wrote in 2021 as I reflected on the increasing unkindness and fear experienced between 2016 and 2020.

As we experience a change of leadership in the United States, I’d like to remind people that fear leads to unkindness as people focus on and try to protect themselves…and that unkindness leads to fear. When leaders model, encourage and accept unkind words and actions, the cycle is amplified, because their words, actions and reactions spread quickly and are repeated over and over again.

The antidote to the Vicious Circle of Fear, and to stop the cycle of fear…unkindness…fear…unkindness… is kindness: Not speaking unkindly to others (and yourself). Not acting in ways that create fear in others. Thinking of how your words and actions will affect others…and making choices of how to act and react to not cause fear.

Today, and every day, you have a choice…a personal choice (regardless of political conditions and models) to act in ways that don’t make others live in fear. At work, at home and in your community. Working together, each of us has the opportunity to choose to lead with kindness.

I ask you today to join me in making that choice. Because it will make your little piece of this country and world better for all of us.

Hey friends! It’s Election Day here in the United States. In a tight, polarized race it’s easy to become divided from neighbors, friends and even family members. Competition can bring out the worst in people and lead to division.

What gets people together?

Kindness!

So today, please be conscious of the need to deliberately act kindly! Invite your neighbors and team members to get together and share some food!! Focus on what we have in common and that everyone is invited and belongs.

It’s a big world and a big country and the kinder each of us is, the more we will get together!

You might be wondering why I’m posting a picture of my not-so-perfect manicure today!

Well, it’s because I want to remind you that when doing something for the first time, it’s unreasonable to expect perfection!

Yesterday I saw these cute Hello Kitty nail decals at the store, and since everyone who knows me knows I LOVE to do my nails, I bought them! I’ve never tried nail decals before, so I couldn’t wait to do my nails this morning and give them a try!

Here’s what happened:
1. The decals were much harder to peel off the backing than I expected…and got a little squashed in the peeling process!
2. I had to peel them off before I polished my nails, so I stuck an edge of them on a container on my studio table. When I picked the stickers up off the edge with tweezers, they ripped…so there is a part of the decal missing!

I could have decided to scrap the whole process and start again…but I didn’t! Because I think it looks fine…and I have some ideas of things to do differently next week…when I take the old polish off and do my nails again!

Today (and everyday) please remember, you aren’t perfect - and neither am I! And things (and people) don’t have to be perfect for you to enjoy them!

I think my nails look great just as they are…and if anyone comments negatively on them, the unkindness is on their side!

Be kind to others and be kind to yourself! That will lead to a lot more joy and enjoyment!

Happy Sunday!

Back by popular demand! My practical, hands-on, virtual training for Dental Practice Managers! (Dentists and practice owners welcome too!)

Dental practice managers play a critical role in making sure practice systems to serve patients and hit practice targets are in place and being followed! But many practice managers don’t receive specific training about how to do that! So instead of proactively managing people and systems, they are stuck in a seeming never ending cycle of fighting fires!

That’s why I created and teach this course! To help dental practice managers calm the chaos and manage people and systems proactively!

Want to see if this what you and your practice needs? Then please use the link this link to learn more about this specialized course, the topics covered, and to register: https://bit.ly/4h1Wot5

And please pass this on to any dentists and/or dental practice managers you know! Much appreciated!

So often people think that competition is the best way to drive innovation and solve complex problems.

It isn’t. Cooperation is.

That’s because when we cooperate with others, we can come up with more ideas, and then combine and synthesize them so that we can create something that is greater than one person ever could imagine on their own! When we cooperate with others, we can have access to strengths we don’t possess ourself. And when we cooperate, we put the problem first…not our own (or our department’s) agenda first.

Today, I was on an all day continuous improvement event (or Swarm as they call it at University of Waterloo Housing) where this is exactly what happened. A cross-functional, cross-divisional team came together and cooperated to create amazing countermeasures to work towards increasing waste diversion in campus housing buildings. Everyone contributed, everyone added to the amazing countermeasures that came out of the day!

Totally inspiring! And the best reminder that when we cooperate and work together, we can solve any problem!

Do you have a dress code at work that shows team members exactly what is acceptable and not? Many companies do! What most don't have is the same type of standard to tell people exactly what specific actions are acceptable...and which ones aren't...so that everyone can act in accordance with the organization's values!

Team members come from all different backgrounds and types of experiences. Their understanding of what actions to take to show a value may be very different!

Kind Leaders know that they need to be specific and explicit in creating standards for actions, so everyone can "speak the same language" and act according to values!

Read the full article here: https://wix.to/mXF58tx