Kindness and Emotional Agility at the workplace

How you can become a better L&D leader by implementing these skills

Kindness and Emotional agility is being emotionally flexible and kind to yourself and others. As a leader in L&D, showing kindness will boost your credibility, get you promotions and build lasting relationships. How you impact people depends on how you treat them. Appreciation inspires greater results within your company. This is because being kind means you sincerely celebrate the success of others at work and create a positive environment.

Here are examples of how you can be kind to your employees:

• Share positive feedback with your employee. Tell them why they make a difference
• Start meetings with a kindness quote and recognition
• Like or comment on someone’s recognition on your company’s Wall of Fame
• Give an employee a book on a topic that interests him or her
• Post positive quotes on your community page

You don’t have to become a ruthless leader to be respected. The best leaders aren’t necessarily the ones that talk loudest or take the biggest risks. They’re the ones who employ emotional agility and genuine kindness. This also enables you to become a better L&D leader.

What is Emotional Agility?

Emotional agility allows us to recognize and respond appropriately to our own and others’ emotions. It’s about having the ability to manage our emotions. This allows us to act from a place of strength rather than react out of fear.

Jen Colletta recently described it this way: “Among the steps to embedding emotional agility in one’s life is showing up to our feelings, including practicing self-compassion and being kind to ourselves despite failure. We must also acknowledge our emotions for what they are, such as owning our disappointment instead of masking it as stress.”

As a leader, it is important to unlock kindness and emotional agility to grow your company and become a better leader. 

According to Christina Comaford, you unlock these skills in 4 ways:

• Figure out what you are feeling. Having self-awareness and knowing when it is the right time to show your emotions.
• Take a breather. Holding off on sending an e-mail until you cool down. This is called Self-Management.
• Consider the recipient. While you are practicing #1 or #2 above, consider what the recipient might feel upon receiving your communication. This is Social Awareness.
• Focus on the outcome. What is the outcome you’d like to achieve? This is relationship Management.

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How can kindness and emotional agility affect your workplace environment?

When you practice kindness and emotional agility, you’ll find that you can handle any situation more effectively. You’ll be able to keep calm and collected during stressful situations and stay focused on the task at hand. Your employees will respect you and want to follow.

“When people are allowed to feel their emotional truth, engagement, creativity, and innovation flourish in the organization.” — Susan David

Leaders should learn how to manage their emotions. They should work on being more flexible and open to new ideas. They should learn to manage their emotions to make better decisions. Leaders should always think about how their actions affect others. This leads to toxic workplace culture. Employees take cues from their leaders. When leaders don’t speak openly and honestly. This results in a toxic environment. 

Research shows us that:

• Emotional intelligence and agility explain 58% of a leader’s job performance
• 90% of top performers are high in EQ
• Employees whose managers are open, approachable, and emotionally agile are more engaged

More engagement leads to lower turnover, higher operational efficiency, and increased performance.

Emotionally agile leaders understand their emotions and respond appropriately. Emotional agility allows them to stay calm and focused even when dealing with difficult situations. 

If you want to become a better leader, lead with kindness and emotional agility. The more mindful you are of your own emotions, the more attuned you’ll be to those around you, which creates an environment where people can be honest and open with you—even when it may benefit them less on an individual level. It’s not being weak; it’s taking advantage of the tremendous power we all wield when we’re willing to lend each other a helping hand in times of need.