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Law At Work group managing director Simon Nash speaks about a key characteristic of leadership which he believes has been overlooked in recent years
ABOUT a decade ago I started to write and speak extensively on the subject of kindness at work and, in particular, kindness in leadership.
At the time very few of us were thinking about leadership as an act of kindness. I even remember doing a talk that had a slide featuring a picture of the presidential candidate Donald J Trump. Everyone in the room laughed back then. Not so many people are laughing now, to be honest.
I was asked the other day, what is the next big thing for leaders to think about? What is one of the emerging truths about how people interact in organisations that has been overlooked in the practice of management and leadership for the past couple of hundred years?
There are quite a few candidates for this out there. The extraordinary traction that a Trump, a Farage or a Netanyahu are getting in imposing their will on the world might make us wonder. But when we consider that their impact is largely through a corporate media owned by powerful interests, we should pause for thought.
The media are always looking for a dramatic story to hook people’s fears and anxieties, so these master players may well function in that sort of environment, but are they really modelling leadership?
But if not the skill of mass manipulation and deceit, then what? Perhaps we might look to the way in which leaders such as Putin, Bukele or Xi impose their will upon the world. When you are an autocrat with practically no limits to power, then a “might makes right” approach to leadership could appear attractive. But the world of business is not really like leading a dictatorship. In business, the trust of your clients and your employees is a valuable commodity – perhaps the most important asset your business has.
Perhaps then we need to turn our gaze in a different direction? Perhaps the leadership trait we are looking for has been known to poets and philosophers all along, but has evaded the attention of the current generation of leaders in business.
Here are a few quotes that might lead us to another angle on leadership. The award-winning novelist, Ursula K Le Guin, in The Dispossessed, wrote these words: “His gentleness was uncompromising; because he would not compete for dominance, he was indomitable.” Hundreds of years ago Francis de Sales put it this way: “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”
Iconic actor Keanu Reeves said this: “If you have been brutally broken, but still have the courage to be gentle to other living beings, then you’re a badass with the heart of an angel.”
Another great actor, Charlie Chaplin, put it this way: “We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.”
Therefore, perhaps my answer is that there is a “next big thing” for leaders to think about, and that challenge will require great strength and courage.
Leadership requires more than we see from the so-called great men of the world stage. Perhaps it is time to listen to the quieter voice of leadership. I speak, of course, of gentleness.
