What People Actually Remember: Kindness Is a Leadership Tool
Article 9 in the Leadership in Real Life Series.
Jennifer Youngbood
6/10/20261 min read
Kindness is a leadership tool.
I've had a small plaque on my desk since high school. It reads:
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it. For I shall not pass this way again."
More than 40 years later, it still guides me. Especially in hard moments.
Kindness gets underestimated as a leadership tool. People sometimes confuse it with softness, or with cheerleading, or with avoiding hard conversations.
It's none of those things.
Kindness is getting the door for someone. Asking how their weekend was while you're walking in the same direction. Delivering difficult feedback in a way that doesn't inflict unnecessary pain. Noticing that someone on your team needs a hand. And actually offering one.
Years ago, I was leading an office through the first day of a crisis response. It had been a long one. I was getting ready to go home when I realized that nearly the entire team had already left. Still at her desk was the most junior person on the project, working through a complicated publishing procedure on her own.
I pinged her to ask if she needed anything. She said she thought she was okay.
I walked over anyway. Pulled up a chair. And we worked through it together.
She was grateful. But honestly, so was I. Something about being useful to someone else on a hard day made it feel less heavy.
More than two years later, on my last day in that job, she told that story to the whole office. I had no idea she'd been carrying it.
What you barely remember, they never forget.
Leadership in Real Life. What People Actually Remember: Kindness Is a Leadership Tool
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