This Fall’s book is The Kind Leader – A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust, and Leading with Kindness. If you haven’t participated in one of our book clubs before, I highly recommend signing up for this one. This is a great opportunity to read a great book and dive into some great discussions with a fabulous group of people from throughout the HPEC community. We have a lot of fun while increasing our perspective and holding each other accountable (for reading and practicing new habits). It’s low-key, engaging, and enlightening. We meet weekly to discuss the assigned chapters and even if you had a busy week and couldn’t complete the reading, we still encourage you to come and participate. Written by a NWHPEC favorite, Karyn Ross, this book explores why kindness is necessary in the workplace and provides practical tips, reflection exercises, and “What Would You Do?” scenarios.
Dates: Tuesdays, starting Nov 1st through Dec 6th
Time: 11:30am – 12:15pm (bring your lunch)
Venue: Virtual, via Zoom
Cost: No charge – just purchase the book and start reading (Amazon, Routledge – 20% off right now)
Download the reading schedule and click here to register (download the calendar invite from your confirmation email).
The Kind Leader by Karyn Ross
Leaders lead. And the way a leader leads – how they do what they do – influences those they lead. What a leader models – how they think, speak and act – influences the people they lead. Leaders who think, speak and act unkindly give legitimacy and permission to those they lead to think, speak, and act in exactly the same unkind ways. Today, in an increasingly fragmented and divided world, we need leaders who will bring people together not divide them. Leaders who value and model cooperation and collaboration over competition. And who model ways to think kindly, speak kindly and act kindly. We need kindness to become synonymous with good leadership. So that when someone is asked to describe the traits of a good leader, kindness will be the first word that comes to mind.
Essentially, the purpose of this book is to teach leaders how to lead with kindness so they can influence the people they lead to create kinder workplaces, organizations and the world. Each chapter contains a mixture of theory, case studies and reflections from leaders and the people they influence. As well, the book follows the fictional stories of Kay’La Janson and Kevin Landrell, as they become leaders in a failing organization that is ultimately turned around through kind leadership. Between chapters there are a series of practical exercises based on concepts presented in the previous chapter with space to record outcomes and reflections on the practice process.
By the time you finish the book, you will feel confident in your ability to lead with kindness and also to address organizational problems at work, at home and in the community, with kindness.