Kindness is a seemingly simple kindergarten concept. However, it is anything but simple when placed into modern workplaces, especially in remote environments. We casually throw the word “kindness” around, lulled into believing everyone shares the same definition, as if it were painfully obvious.
And here lies our first challenge: not everyone agrees on the definition of kindness. Our temperaments, rooted in deep personality traits, shape our fundamental definitions of this slippery behavioral trait. How do we reconcile the differing definitions and expectations of kindness in workplaces dependent upon emotional intelligence?
Agreeableness and the Subjectivity of Kindness
Personality research, particularly the Big Five personality traits, reveals insights about kindness. The trait most associated with perceived kindness is agreeableness, characterized by compassion, empathy, cooperation, and a tendency to prioritize harmony over confrontation. Essentially, the highly agreeable types focus first on “getting along” and then on “getting it done.” People lower in agreeability will prioritize “getting it done” and then focus on “getting along.” Both ends of the spectrum are fully capable of caring about getting along and getting things done, but the sequence differs.
Highly agreeable individuals often equate kindness with harmony, warmth, and care for emotional comfort above confrontation, and may tend to share uncomfortable truths in the nicest way they can manage. Conversely, individuals lower in agreeableness (often found in the more results-oriented professions, such as surgeons, lawyers, programmers, high-performing specialists, and senior executives) frequently define kindness differently. To these individuals, kindness may mean skipping all the polite niceties and getting right to the point, even if their “efficient” delivery causes discomfort in the short term.
Such differing temperaments can easily lead to conflicts. A leader low in agreeability may sincerely believe they’re practicing kindness by directly confronting an employee’s errors; however, this action might be perceived as unkind, harsh, or even hostile by more agreeable team members.
This brings us to a key paradox: kindness isn’t universally defined. It’s subjective, colored by personality, experience, and temperament. Effective leadership involves calibrating communication to diverse temperaments, ensuring that clarity and directness do not inadvertently undermine team cohesion, harmony, and/or trust.
To reconcile these varying temperaments, organizations should understand kindness as multidimensional, requiring both authenticity and flexibility:
- For the highly agreeable: Kindness involves mindful empathy, showing care through gentleness, supportive language, and acts of service.
- For the individual lower in agreeableness: Kindness manifests as directness and accountability, even when causing discomfort for others in the moment.
The key lies in understanding that neither approach is inherently superior, except that certain high-stakes situations may benefit more from one side of the spectrum than the other. Rather, both are essential facets of kindness that can produce a more robust and balanced approach to kindness.
Tips for Harmonizing Different Temperaments
For Individuals Lower in Agreeability:
- Learn to soften your directness. Add context to criticism, recognizing that how feedback is delivered profoundly affects how it’s received.
- Practice expressing genuine appreciation to balance critiques. Acknowledge colleagues’ contributions explicitly to reinforce relational ties.
For Individuals Higher in Agreeability
- Learn to value and encourage clarity, even when uncomfortable. Recognize that genuine kindness sometimes means facing uncomfortable truths head-on.
- Establish boundaries clearly to ensure politeness doesn’t suppress honesty. Support a culture where colleagues feel safe speaking openly and authentically.
Full-Spectrum Kindness
Kindness is not merely nice-to-have fluff. Rather, it’s complex, nuanced, and challenging to balance properly. It involves a careful blend of honesty and empathy, directness and compassion, accountability and support. The highest functioning teams and partnerships harmoniously integrate differing temperaments, recognizing that kindness demands bravery, truthfulness, and a proactive orientation toward others’ well-being.
Kindness, properly understood and skillfully executed, is no small thing. It might be the greatest virtue a person can cultivate.
