Conversations in Management
Amelia
Earhart isn’t the first name to come to mind when discussing
kindness. That’s not to say that there is anything
particularly unkind about rising to the top of one’s
profession, but kindness isn’t something normally associated
with a climb to celebrity as well. Such a climb usually
entails being narrowly focused and intensely driven—actions more
likely to result in self-absorption rather than kindliness.
That, however, wasn’t Earhart’s style. Throughout her
high-flying aviation career, her personality remained well
grounded by her sense of decency and concern for others.
Unlike the privacy-craving Lindbergh, she wore her fame
comfortably and she used it to its best advantage. Fame helped
her generate the funds necessary to push aviation’s limits. By
the time of her ill-fated around-the-world flight in 1937, she’d
racked up an impressive 15 aviation firsts. Fame also
helped her launch a successful line of women’s’ clothing and
later a line of luggage designed for air travel. But she also
used her fame to promote the role of women in aviation. As a
teenager, Earhart began collecting clippings about successful
women in male-dominated careers such as law, engineering and
management. It was an interest that she later pursued from her
platform as aviation editor for Cosmopolitan magazine.
There, she wrote convincingly about what she demonstrated
through her own achievements—the idea that in “jobs requiring
intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower,”
woman were the equal of men. In countless newspaper columns,
magazine articles and personal appearances, she encouraged girls
to challenge socially imposed limitations. Importantly, Earhart
did it with humor, self-effacement, modesty and kindness.
When
discussing kindness, cynics and the world-weary are likely to
observe that no good deed goes unpunished. They’ve
learned—as many of us have—that there are some folks who respond
to kindness, empathy or goodwill with a sharp rebuke. Yet
demonstrating kindness doesn’t mean being a chump. Sure, there
are those few tormented souls who believe that every act of
kindness is an opportunity for exploitation—a means of scoring
some personal “victory” at someone else’s expense. While such
folks need to be held accountable for their actions, they
shouldn’t be treated unkindly. They need kindness most of all.
With repeated application, they may actually become kind
themselves. It’s that repeated application that Earhart
was talking about. She believed that every act of kindness, in
turn, generated another. She wrote, “A single act of kindness
throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and
make new trees.” That’s a good way of thinking about it—from
a single kind act, a forest of kindness grows.
It’s hard
to dispute that a kinder workplace wouldn’t be a better
one. A workplace that fosters kindness doesn’t imply a place
where standards are lax, people aren’t accountable or where poor
performance is tolerated. Instead, it’s a place where you do
your best in the easy confidence that your coworkers are
watching your back rather than putting a target on it. It’s a place
where small, spontaneous acts of kindness take the place of
petty bickering. It’s a place where folks are quick to praise
and slow to find fault. Best of all, creating such a workplace
is free and doesn’t require management approval. Nor does it
require meetings, teams or additional paperwork. It just
requires that you do something kind. And once you’ve done
it, repeat the application. Like all things that grow,
you may not see immediate results, but you will in time. Today’s
a good day to plant a forest. Why not start now?
—Ebert
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