Today on World Kindness Day here are a few practices to weave into your leadership style if you want kindness to be a part of your personal style.
Focus on others
It's easy to make everything about you, how can you focus on the people around you? Look at each situation with compassion and empathy, ask how this situation has come about for the person you are working with. How can that shift your behavior / response?
Offer a helping hand
This can be a smile to a stranger, the offer of support to a friend or the willingness to pitch in with a colleague on a project. That smile might be IRL or it could be a positive message through your phone. The offer of support might be someone to talk it over with, or opening your network to offer someone better suited to help. You might even volunteer in the community
Be there to listen
Really paying attention to a speaker is possibly the greatest gift we can give. The benefits of and barriers to listening are manifold, but when you listen you can reduce stress and anxiety in others, and build stronger relationships.
Send care packages—no matter how small
It. Is. The. Thought. That, Counts. Any care package you send or give, whether physical or digital, is a wave from you to them saying "I see you and I care". You can send a book that inspired you, a Ted Talk that moved you or leave a favorite snack or fruit at someone's desk. Buy a meal for a homeless person. Get creative, they'll love it. Here is a care package for you the longest is twenty four minutes the shortest just five. Go on, you're worth it.
Stay connected
Now more than ever too many are isolated or lonely despite all our connections, followers and "likes". A call, a text or SMS, a snapchat or even a handwritten note can lift the recipients day more than you can imagine. And it takes just a moment
What would you add to this list for world kindness day?
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