This week i am sharing extracts from the Quiet Leadership Guidebook as i write it: the book is based around 8 questions that you can use as a foundation for conversations with others. This section considers one of the questions, on Kindness. Shared here it is a little out of context, but this comes almost exactly half way through the journey into the ecosystem of Quiet Leadership: leadership through the smallest of actions, in every day.
This is your fourth question: how can you grow with Kindness in every day?
What i want you to explore here is somewhat practical in nature: can we grow with Kindness, or indeed SHOULD we seek to grow with Kindness, in every day?
If Kindness is something that we reserve for times when we have plenty, times of surplus, then it feels like a special occasion, not a culture or practice. But to be kind in every day may feel artificial, inauthentic, or even a burden: what about those days when you are exhausted, or have nothing to give?
I guess this will relate back to the ways that we are kind: through thoughts, words, and actions.
When you stand in a field, on the edge of the forest, within our ecosystem, you feel the wind against your skin, but it is rarely a constant force. Sometimes it blows hard, and at others it dies away to a whisper. Perhaps that is how we grow with Kindness: at times with a whisper, and at times with a shout.
Use your time in conversation to explore this: what ‘feels’ right, how would we know it is right, and how would we experience this in practice?