Does your inner voice ever say things to yourself that you would never say to others? Do you find it hard to forgive yourself for mistakes or bounce back after a setback? We can all strengthen our capacity for self-kindness by recognizing its gifts, understanding our resistance to it, and practicing to become the leader that creates a culture of safety and caring.
Self-kindness is both important and valuable.
The scientific evidence is clear-cut. Self-kindness contributes richly to our flourishing and quality of life. It makes it easier to see our worth unconditionally, to love ourselves, and to take a more positive outlook in our daily life.
Self-kindness has been shown to help people have a better awareness of their own needs and find a balance between their care for others and care for themselves. We can’t give what we don’t have, and an unbounded focus on the needs of others can lead to our exhaustion and burnout, paradoxically reducing our capacity to offer care. Care for others requires a balanced care for ourselves.
When challenges arise, self-kindness is strongly correlated with one’s ability to be resilient. The return path from a setback, when infused with self-kindness, is much more likely to include less depression, anxiety, and avoidant behavior. Leaders who pick themselves up after a setback with both transparency and gentleness set a positive tone for their entire team. Their willingness to show their full humanity creates a model that gives permission to others to confront their own failings and move beyond them with resilience.
Many things hold us back from being kind to ourselves.
Given the powerful evidence for the benefits of self-kindness, it seems straightforward that this is something worth practicing. One common reason for resistance, especially for leaders, is the fear that if we are kind to ourselves, we will become soft. The prevailing belief is that harshness is a better motivator than kindness. But the evidence says that is not so! Instead of motivating us to do better, shame and blame cause us to avoid dealing with a challenging issue. On the other hand, treating ourselves with kind concern and understanding actually increases our sense of responsibility and accountability.
Another widespread belief that holds people back is the idea that being kind to and taking care of oneself is selfish. This puritanical notion is common in many cultures and is partly built on the idea that caring for oneself conflicts with being kind to others. As mentioned earlier, that’s really not accurate and in fact, the opposite is true. We exist in communities of interconnected individuals, and our kindness to ourselves ripples out into greater kindness for others. It’s contagious, in a good way. Because it is often easier to understand the value of kindness for others, the self-compassion practice, “Note to a Dear Friend” can help us move from kindness toward others to kindness toward ourselves.
Compassionate leadership begins with self-kindness.
Leaders who are not dealing with their own inner work can make their team’s challenges worse. In hierarchies, stress flows downhill. This is why the first step in our Compassionate Leadership Framework starts with self-compassion and kindness. Compassionate leaders need to cultivate their own capacity as a prerequisite to creating cultures of safety, connection, and belonging.
When leaders strengthen their kindness muscle, it enables them to be aware of the experience of those around them, and respond to individual, team, and organizational needs skillfully. As we embrace and embody our own self-kindness, it facilitates a community of kindness and resilience. At the core of leadership, we set the stage by example and support team members to learn to be kind to themselves.
In closing …
It’s hard to move past our ingrained beliefs and obstacles. It takes intention and practice to overcome the inner voice as well as the overarching cultural perspective. Repetition and practice are needed to shift old pathways into new patterns. Keep prioritizing self-kindness, and soon it will become your everyday response and the response of those you lead.