We don’t necessarily associate great leadership with kindness, particularly when discussing Vince Lombardi-era football. But former NFL player and longtime college coach Bill Curry had this to say in an interview with Tom Tolbert on KNBR this afternoon:
Unexpected, undeserved, unrewarded acts of kindness from great leaders…make great teams.
He was referring to the kindness showed to him as a rookie Green Bay Packer in 1965 by veteran African American players who took him under their wing and, in his words, "taught me how to behave." Curry had no black teammates in college at Georgia Tech and initially found the diversity he encountered in the NFL hard to handle. But influential team leaders such as Willie Davis apparently went out of their way to reach out to Curry and helped him adjust.
Curry expressed profound gratitude for his teammates’ kindness, and in his retelling, that kindness was as instrumental as Lombardi’s legendary toughness in shaping the ’60s Packers into a tight-knit, cohesive unit. I’m not suggesting–nor was Curry–that Lombardi’s approach was wrong, or that kindness alone would have had the same affect.
And yet it feels as though we hear about leaders’ toughness all the time, and we never hear about their kindness. But when I think about the most effective leaders I’ve known and worked with, they had the ability to be both tough and kind as needed, and those aspects of their personality didn’t cancel each other out. Rather, their skillful use of one approach complemented the other; their kindness meant even more because I knew how tough they could be.
3 Responses
Thanks, Ben. I don’t disagree–as Bob Sutton has noted, 90% of management advice is crap, and I think that’s because we have a lot of armchair generals in this field. My own approach to coaching and consulting is deeply informed by my personal successes and failures as a leader, although I ultimately add the most value not by providing answers but by asking questions.
At the same time, there’s another issue at work here, and that’s our culture’s discomfort with kindness (or anything that seems “soft”) in the public sphere. We find it difficult to express and share these feelings in most professional settings, so we act as though they don’t have a place there.
As I note above, I don’t think kindness alone is the key to successful leadership, and I certainly believe that Lombardi-style toughness has a role to play as well, but the best leaders are able to express both.
This is a case of observers of leadership as compared to the users of leadership. The observers have not the slightest idea of what makes success and prefer to pick out things they think are noteworthy and will sell their books and articles.
What they profess is not worth spit usually because they have not proved in the heat of battle that what they profess works. And besides, not being managers they can act irresponsibly without having to suffer the consequences.
This was learned by having managed people for over 30 years and successfully turned around four different “management disasters”.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
Ed,
Agreed.
You wrote – “At the same time, there’s another issue at work here, and that’s our culture’s discomfort with kindness (or anything that seems “soft”) in the public sphere.”
Not precisely sure where it all comes from, but I know that society is authoritarian based and believes that people are basically bad. With this background, kindness is considered too easily taken advantage of and only used for those who prove themselves to be deserving. “You reap what you sow” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” are lost.
In addition, the writers in the field of management and leadership have generally eschewed soft skills while concentrating on organization, marketing, sales, technology and the like. Very, very few share my beliefs, but then very, very few have ever experienced the huge creativity, innovation and productivity gains I was able to achieve.
“As I note above, I don’t think kindness alone is the key to successful leadership, and I certainly believe that Lombardi-style toughness has a role to play as well, but the best leaders are able to express both.”
I would put it a bit stronger in that kindness alone is the road to failure, for many reasons. But you are certainly spot on about the best leaders being able to be tough and kind. I would contend that they must also lead toward the highest standards of every value in order to arrive at truly superior performance. I believe Lombardi to have been one of those. Character flaws always interfere with excellence in the long run.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”