"Leading with Kindness identifies six ingredients of kindness - compassion, integrity, gratitude, authenticity, humility, and humor - none of which might readily spring to mind when envisioning the archetypal business leader. But they are absolutely essential to powerful leadership. The book also points out obstacles to each of the six qualities, and (crucially) offers real-world, everyday management and leadership approaches that build and demonstrate each one."--BOOK JACKET.

William F. Baker (New York, NY) is Chief Executive Officer of Educational Broadcasting Corp (Thirteen/WNET and WL1W21). He is Executive in Residence at Columbia University Business School, and University Professor at Fordham.

Michael O'Malley (Hamden, CT) is Executive Editor for Business, Economics, and Law at Yale University Press, and adjunct professor at Columbia University Business School.

Foreword	p. ix
Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
What Kind Leaders Do	p. 11
Who Kind Leaders Are	p. 37
Expectations Matter	p. 77
The Truth Matters	p. 119
Growth Matters	p. 155
Preparing the Next Generation of Leaders	p. 193
Appendix	p. 217
Index	p. 229
About the Authors	p. 237
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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CHAPTER 1WHAT KIND LEADERS DOEnter Lady Macbeth. Reflecting on a witch's prophecy that her husband will become King of Scotland, she wonders if, despite his ambitions, he is too soft, "too full o' th' milk of human kindness," to do what it will take when the current king, Duncan, drops by.At least since the time of Shakespeare, many have questioned the awkward alliance between kindness and leadership. Although the imperatives of leadership are not as extreme as murder, they may involve decisions that involve doing what is best for the company at the expense of other concerns: decisions, for example, that can cost others their livelihoods or affect the well-being of entire communities. In these situations, kindness is perceived as a self-defeating obstruction.In this book, we maintain that kindness and leadership are complementary, and that this combination specifically gives a leader a crucial edge. Our conclusions are based on our personal experiences, an understanding of the academic literature, and interviews with many business leaders who have quietly made a difference to their companies, their industries, and, in some cases, their country. We don't pretend that our examination covers all facets of leadership. But we believe our inquiry goes to the heart of what it means to be an effective leader and that our exploration of kindness is a refreshing antidote to the sterility of much leadership theory.We admittedly had our reservations about using the word kind to describe a special sort of leader because it conveys a softness from which many in business recoil, even though it seems odd to distance oneself from such a positive trait. We chose to retain it for three reasons. First, kindness is universally understood as a virtue.1 It is recognized as an essential ingredient of humaneness regardless of religious or ethnic heritage and has a well-deserved role in human affairs.Second, it approximates in meaning a set of attributes that we found in successful leaders. No one word can capture everything there is to know about any person, but kindness appropriately summarizes a constellation of behaviors we have observed among a group of effective leaders.Third, the leaders with whom we spoke had no difficulty with the term. Indeed, they rather liked it. As long as we properly explain its meaning, each is very pleased to be called kind.INDUSTRIAL AGE BOSSESKindness is not the first word we associate with business. The image of business still largely includes old scenes from industrial America in the early twentieth century: the age of hard work and tough bosses. As the machines heated, spun, milled, and bore, managerial overlords paced factory floors counting the output and pressing employees to produce more and more. This was not the place for weak-kneed supervisors and executives. Forbearance was not a principle of Taylorism and the new scientific management, which adduced tightly choreographed movements between man and machine.2 The goal was to keep production lines efficiently moving by any means necessary. The only thing worse than workers who wouldn't work was a soft manager who couldn't make them.Today, the pressure for unremitting productivity from the forces of fierce competition in the global marketplace continues. New, unforeseen market entrants can suddenly emerge from anywhere in the world with a new technology, better business model, or improved product, to exploit a company's weaknesses and rob it of customers.3 Meanwhile, traditional competitors are always laying in wait for a missed order, a slip in quality