Kindness: A Virtue for Personal Satisfaction in Business and in Life|Roslyn Rajasingam

Do you regard kindness as a weakness or a strength?

One definition of kindness is that it is “a behaviour marked by ethical characteristics, a pleasant disposition and concern and consideration for others.”¹

This definition itself is filled with positivity: ethical, pleasant and concern. As human beings, we are expected to be kind and considerate with one another. We generally consider kindness to be good and harshness or thoughtlessness to be bad.

We, most probably, have met an office supervisor or a boss who is rude, brash and hostile. Could it be that they consider kindness as a weakness in the workplace? The boss could even be a man or a woman. It is apparently a perception that kindness is a sign of weakness.

It is interesting to note that Lois Frankel, a specialist in the field of leadership development for women, and author of “Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office,” advocates that a woman must overcome the “nice girl syndrome” if they want to achieve the career success they want.

On the other hand, Gary Vaynerchuck, a successful digital marketing and social media speaker and author who owns VaynerMedia, can be caught to swear many times in his events but still preaches that “people who view kindness as a negative are just insecure themselves. You can only be kind if you feel that you’re coming from a place of leverage.” He sees kindness as “a massive advantage, not a passive trait — especially if you’re a naturally ‘tough’ person.” He believes that kindness is “the best business strategy,” and does not get it when so many people think “nice guys finish last.”

He talks about “opportunities you’d get behind your back by being a good person and opportunities you’d lose by being a bad person.” He thinks kindness always gets rewarded as somebody is always watching.

The director of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Center in Houston, Texas, Karyn Hall, Ph.D., offers different ways to practice kindness: a kind word, a smile, opening a door, helping someone carry a heavy load, giving honest compliments, sending an email thanking someone, telling someone how s/he is special to you, helping an elderly neighbour, taking a photo of someone and sending it to the person, sharing homemade food, refusing to gossip, and donating old clothing/things you don’t need.

She adds that “kindness includes being kind to yourself. Do you treat yourself kindly? Do you speak gently and kindly to yourself and take good care of yourself?”

Kindness can strengthen your relationships and sense of satisfaction at work, in business and in life.

We used to have a supervisor, actually a manager of managers, who was so fierce and thoughtless with regards to dealing with the managers under him. Instead of supporting them, he did not listen nor care about who gets fired or whose family gets affected because his main aim, his high ambition, was to be the CEO of the organisation. And the result? No matter how ruthless he was, he never became the CEO.

We can also learn from the Saints:

Saint Teresa of Calcutta said, “Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.”²

Saint Therese of Lisieux, who is also affectionately known as the Little Flower, is a Doctor of the Church. She said: “Kindness is my only guiding star,” she wrote in her diary entitled “The Story of a Soul,” which was published years after her passing and became a bestselling book.³

Saint Basil the Great once said “A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”⁴

St. Francis of Assisi said “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” He also believed that it was important for us to also be kind to all of God’s creatures.⁵

I truly hope that we will all learn and practise kindness as it is a virtue for personal satisfaction and success in business and in life, both physical and spiritual.