The Financial Benefits of Adopting a Compassionate Leadership Style
The holiday season is all about goodwill. It's a time for unity, empathy, and generosity. Contrasting this, workplace behaviors can sometimes be quite different. In numerous workplaces, masculine traits are lauded and esteemed. The ideal leader is perceived as strong, decisive, and authoritative. Descriptions of leaders often lack female traits such as understanding, communication, and benevolence.
However, kindness can often be exactly what's required in the workplace. Many employees endure daily verbal abuse, bullying, or mistreatment. According to a study conducted by Professor Tepper from Ohio State University, about 10% of employees are subjected to abusive supervision, and this is a rather conservative estimate. Nevertheless, there is a strong business argument for benevolent leadership. To comprehend how kindness drives results, I researched what benevolent leadership means, its benefits, and methods to practice it.
What Is Benevolent Leadership?
In her book The Payoff of Goodwill: How Benevolent Leadership Drives Loyalty, Success and Business Growth, Bonnie Hayden Cheng, Associate Professor of Management at HKU Business School, explains what benevolent leadership is. "It involves conscious acts to improve the lives of your team members. Goodwill encompasses core values such as empathy, compassion, humility, and generosity."
Dr. Cheng further clarifies, "The misconception surrounding benevolent leadership is that a benevolent leader is a weak leader. Kindness and niceness differ. Niceness often involves adhering to people-pleasing behaviors to avoid hurting people's feelings. Benevolent leaders prioritize their team's well-being but are willing to make tough decisions when necessary to accomplish tasks."
What Is the Payoff of Goodwill?
Goodwill goes a long way in many organizations. Zappos, for example, is committed to delivering happiness. They achieve this by being kind and considerate towards their employees and customers. Zappos began as an online shoe store and eventually grew into a billion-dollar fashion empire.
Westjet's founders established a new airline in 1994 with a care-focused culture. They believed that if you prioritize your employees, they will reciprocate by taking care of your customers, leading to increased profits. Despite the high failure rate of new airlines, Westjet increased its annual revenue from 37 million in 1996 to 3.8 billion in 2019.
Research emphasizes similar results. Professor Podsakoff from the University of Arizona conducted a study based on 3,500+ business units with more than 50,000 employees. Workplaces with polite and thoughtful employees had better performance and less staff turnover. Organizations with a supportive culture had higher customer satisfaction and lower expenses.
When inquired by Rob Grant, co-founder of PBX Engineering, where kindness is a common practice among leaders, about what benefits kindness offers, he shared, "It's fairly straightforward. People respond better to a kind request than to a harsh command. If your company values its employees, you attract top talent, employees are eager to go the extra mile, and they stay committed to the company. Kindness pays off in triple returns." Grant's department has recorded no employee turnover across the past decade.
How Can Leaders Foster Kindness?
Although The Payoff of Goodwill proposes many exercises for cultivating kindness, Dr. Cheng highlighted the following three for me.
- Change from within. It's simple to be a kind leader when things are going well. However, during stressful times, it can be challenging to display your best self. If you're not taking care of yourself, you won't be able to assist your team effectively. You must confront any internal obstacles that may prevent you from becoming a kind leader. Self-awareness is the foundation of change.
- Establish a kindness plan each day. Set an intention every day to perform an act of kindness towards your team. Write down your plan before starting work and commit to following through. In an intervention with around 70 managers, Dr. Cheng asked them to come up with three concrete ways to express kindness to their team members. Over a two-week period, she observed that managers became more empowering and supportive towards their team members and reported higher satisfaction with their well-being.
- Practice empathy. The final exercise is meant for tense situations where you might lash out or choose kindness instead. Pause for a moment to visualize how you would react if you were in the recipient's shoes or if you were addressing a loved one in the same manner.
In the spirit of the holiday season, kind leaders can bring the Christmas spirit into the workplace by demonstrating empathy and compassion towards their team members. As Professor Tepper's study reveals, abusive supervision is a common issue in numerous workplaces, making kindness a crucial aspect of benevolent leadership. By prioritizing the well-being of their team and practicing empathy, benevolent leaders like Zappos and Westjet have seen significant business growth and improved organizational performance.
