Kind Leadership for navigating uncertainty (and more)
Kindness should become the natural way of life, not the exception
(Siddartha Gautama)
“We,” not “I,” “Listen,” not “Impose,” “Act with respect,” not “Just act,” “Lead a team with confidence,” not “Direct”-there are so many of those small and at the same time big hallmarks that identify kind leadership.
But why is there so much talk about gentle leadership these days?
The past two years have been extremely challenging: the world has been shaken by a historical phase dictated by the Covid-19 pandemic, by new economic-political crises, and by a succession of causal events that, inexorably, have involved (and continue to involve) people, environments, and organizations.
From a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) context we have moved to a BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible) context. “BANI” includes instability and chaotic, surprising, and disorienting situations that generate anxiety.
Organizations have had to cope with the new environment with unforeseen and rapid changes and continue to be modified and readjusted in order to maintain a threshold of productivity necessary to achieve goals.
We as People are experiencing a situation of continuous uncertainty: we make the changes necessary to adapt to an asset of complex variables, including the management of smart working, the digitization of processes that require continuous up and re-skilling processes, and the management of staff suddenly absent due to pandemic. These are all situations that generate anxiety and impact our interpersonal and organizational relationship system.
We ask ourselves new thoughts about ourselves and our surroundings: the way we understand life, work, and the emotions we feel impact our well-being and work-life balance.
Organizations need to take into account new emerging relational needs and the need to enhance certain skills to deal with the BANI context, through a process of renewed self-awareness and individual responsibility together with a leadership style that supports and enhances not only and not so much the development of technical skills required by the role but also and above all that supports the employee and the team to deal with moments of uncertainty and to manage related emotions.
Fragility requires resilience skills and flexibility, anxiety requires empathy and awareness, nonlinearity can be addressed with context reading, and incomprehensibility can be managed with transparent communication with the enhancement of intuition.
The new scenario requires kind, empathic leadership ,that places the concept of Humanity andrelationshipat the center; kind leadership capable of sending a clear message: to move from the I to the We
to w-alk together toward a common goal and with a firm relationship based on mutual trust, respecting each uniqueness that distinguishes each individual in one’s team.
Building trusting relationships, actively listening, being empathetic, accepting diversity, asking questions and giving feedback are some of the key skills of the gentle leader in addition to a structured approach to achieving goals.
Continuous exchanges and confrontations with the team for developing awareness and enhancing individual responsibility are the elements of success to frequently monitor a winning team.
Kind and sincere leadership set on these competencies and a modus operandi contribute to the creation of a calm, crisp climate where people feel empowered, safe, motivated and autonomous since trust and empathy are the gluing principles of a team.
A leadership that recognizes the person for who he or she is, that recognizes strengths and gives feedback to enhance areas for improvement, is aware that each of its resources has a natural orientation toward talent and it will be its goal to discover it and grow it with care.
The leader becomes a facilitator for relationships inside and outside the company, soliciting new and unexplored solutions, in products or services and in processes; he facilitates the production of meaning, reasoning and engagement of employees because they no longer work for mere remuneration but, having rediscovered the value of time and space thanks in part to smart working, they seek well-being in the company, joyfully following one or more figures who can bring work-life balance through a series of decisions based on listening and understanding.
Foresight is the virtue of those who have the courage to see far, of those who plant a seed because they are aware that one day that tree will contribute to making a garden lush with fruit, andAmbire SB planted that seed more than 20 years ago: our leadership model has always been based on kindness because our organizational culture is rooted in listening and a willingness to let each person’s uniqueness blossom without ever losing sight of the goals: from team to customer, from strategy to task operation in the perspective of listening and mutual trust in an atmosphere of constant collaboration, teaching us that success is nothing but a natural consequence of our actions and intentions.
Our model of gentle leadership is based on principles, methodologies and theories of Transactional Analysis, systemic theory, coaching and counseling.
