“You don’t have to choose between being an effective leader and being a good person”—Dr Bonnie Hayden Cheng on why kindness is a secret weapon in leadership

What is kind leadership?

The definition I provide in the book is “taking intentional action in service to and for the betterment of people in your care”. 

Kind leadership is really about connecting with people, human to human. But, it’s more than that, because kindness is really a world view. You don’t just put on this hat when you start your work day and take it off at the end of the day. It’s a way you engage with the world and it encompasses your core values around empathy and compassion and humility and generosity. So, to lead with kindness is really to lead with humanity.

And most importantly, kindness is a verb. It’s active. If you’re calling yourself a kind leader but people aren’t seeing that in action, are you really a kind leader? Human beings are hardwired to be kind. We’ve been raised to be kind, and it even goes back to our evolutionary history—tribes that were able to make alliances and cooperate with each other were the ones most likely to survive, but somehow that all stops when we talk about the workplace, and especially when we talk about leadership. 

Why? There’s this perception of what it took for leaders to get to where they are—a dog-eat-dog world, and that the competitive nature of climbing the corporate ladder has not been conducive to kindness, so when leaders get to the top, there’s this idea that those under them have to earn stripes the same way. It’s about understanding that your job is no longer what you used to do, but is to care about the people around you.

What are some of the misconceptions around kind leadership? 

One of the biggest misconceptions is that kind leadership is a weakness and therefore leaders don’t want to make that their dominant approach. A key part of the book is really changing people’s mindsets around that. 

Leading with kindness is actually intertwined with toughness, meaning kindness and toughness are not mutually exclusive. You can be kind and tough, and in fact it’s the kindness that sets the foundation for leaders to be tough, to be able to make tough decisions, to hold tough conversations and to set high standards and expectations of their people, because people know that their leader has their best interests in mind.

Kindness is not niceness. When you think about leading from nice, that’s often about being a people pleaser. These are leaders who go along with the majority because they don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. It’s the leader that tries too hard to be everybody’s friend, but this is damaging because nice leaders don’t make the tough decisions that are needed to get the job done, and nice leaders don’t hold the tough conversations with their people, because they want to keep the peace. And so there’s this clear distinction around niceness versus kindness, where kindness actually aligns more with toughness. Kindness doesn’t mean you lower your standards. You can still—and should—hold your people accountable. You should still have high expectations of your people, and you can make tough calls and have tough conversations, but you’re doing so with kindness that allows your people to trust in the decisions, knowing that you’ve got their back. 

One of the key messages that I hope people will take from the book is that you don’t have to choose between being an effective leader and being a good person, because kindness is not a weakness.

What are the benefits of kind leadership? 

The ‘return on kindness’ (ROK) is a play on return on investment (ROI), showing the tangible and intangible effects of kindness. What the book shows is that unlike the ROI, the ROK is non-linear because kindness multiplies and expands. When you have a company with leadership grounded in kindness, you start attracting and retaining top talent. You have the benefits of a more engaged workforce. You have loyalty, commitment. And all of that contributes to the bottom line—to innovation, productivity, performance. And, talking about the intangibles, it’s the positive energy you feel in a company—happiness, trust. The ROK is really both tangible and intangible and it's data-backed.

Who is a great example of a kind leader? 

For the book, I talk to global leaders, such as WD-40 [former] CEO Garry Ridge, who recently retired, but who had employee engagement scores year on year well above 90 per cent, which is just incredible. But I also wanted to spotlight local Hong Kong leaders and how these leaders have built cultures. One was Niq Lai, who also just stepped down (in February 2024) as CEO of Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN). This is a company that is locally born and developed, and Lai built something that mirrors what you see in Silicon Valley. He really put kind leadership into action and role modelled kind leadership. It’s seen in the engagement, financials, in the way [the company] prioritises people over profits. During the pandemic, they took a hit on financials to support lower income families in Hong Kong, and that’s all grounded in their vision and mission statement in making Hong Kong a better place to live, which really guides every decision that they make even at the cost of their own profits.

What are some changes that leaders can make to lead with kindness? 

In the book, I describe a RISE framework to inspire current and aspiring leaders to rise to kind leadership through:

• R – Role modelling kindness
• I – Intentional flexibility
• S – Supportive action: Because kindness is manifested in action
• E – Energise and equip: Energy is palpable, especially from a leader, and the energy that leaders give off can set people off on a great day or a terrible day, and equip is giving people the resources to do a good job

One small kindness change that everyone can put into their daily tool kit is to ask themselves, ‘What’s one thing I can do for my people today that will make things easier for them?’ The possibilities are endless, from a small thing such as checking in on someone who’s struggling, to a bigger thing like getting the ball rolling on policy change. As a leader, starting your day with how you can remove roadblocks for your people can bring big rewards. 

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