Kindness is the Antidote to Burnout (Part 2)

The antidote to burnout, if released in individuals, organisations and societies is kindness.

Where Kindness Flourishes And Flows Burnout Will Not Occur.

Burnout isn’t an individual problem; rather it is caused by a complex interaction between workplace conditions, individual preferences and characteristics, and societal expectations.

Effective prevention needs to address all these layers. Workplace well-being programmes that focus solely on the individual will remain largely ineffective in preventing burnout because they are only addressing one layer of the problem. It is a bit like making a diary free trifle by changing the custard type but neglecting to substitute the cream on top.

Once we start digging into the layers and interactions required for a comprehensive burnout prevention strategy it can become overwhelmingly complex. This is where kindness is so powerful. Kindness is a foundational attitude that can cut through this complexity.

The Strength Of Kindness

Kindness at work is not simply being nice, soft or trying to make everyone happy. Kindness has strength, It doesn’t shy away from honesty, discomfort or hard conversations. Kindness is a sense of warmth and care towards others well-being, it involves considering other people’s perspectives, connecting meaningfully with them and making space for our own and others feelings. Kindness is a blend of attitudes, motivations, feelings and actions.

As an example my physiotherapist is warm and kind, but to treat my frozen shoulder effectively he needs to stretch my frozen muscles, creating a little pain to restore movement. He observes carefully, assessing how much I can handle, using his expertise to guide each stretch, and he offers reassurance through his tone. Sometimes pushing until it hurts is the kindest thing to do, but it can be done with warmth and compassion.

Pro-Sociality In The Workplace

In psychology kindness is part of the theory of “pro-sociality.” Pro-sociality “refers to a broad set of behavioral, motivational, cognitive, affective, and social processes that contribute to, and/or are focused on, the welfare of others” (Hart & Hart, 2023). Pro-sociality includes the study of a diverse range of motivations and behaviour such as why people volunteer, empathy, sympathy, social support and financial donating.

An organisation that has kindness as its foundational value will intentionally create a culture where kindness permeates all levels and corners of an organisation. This is a bit like how the layers of a trifle eventually drip through to the next layer down. So conditions are created in which people can flourish rather than burnout. A kind organisation will strive to develop kind individuals, foster kind interactions, promotes kind leadership, and establishes systems, and structures that support kindness. This foundational framework of kindness within a workplace is then free to flow outward, enhancing client and service-user experiences.

Kind People

In healthcare and social services, staff are generally orientated towards care and kindness. But for these individuals to flourish at work they need to be treated with care and kindness. They need leadership that recognises and supports the emotional complexity of their work and deeply understands the impact of their connection to other’ suffering. Kind staff expect a safe place to express their emotions and to show up authentically with whatever they are carrying from the challenges of their work.

Kind people often need support and training to turn their kindness towards themselves. Their drive to care can lead to self-sacrifice, so they benefit from a solid framework of self-care, self-awareness, and clear boundaries to protect their well-being. Self-kindness is a vital antidote to the weight of their own expectations, which can be a significant source of stress in many in the helping professions.

Kind Interactions

Kindness is expressed in the space between people, whether they’re colleagues or managers and their teams, or a group of senior leaders. Kind workplaces recognise that relationships are essential for both employee well-being and effective work. They allow time and space for interacting, connecting and befriending seeing it as a vital part of employees working life. Kind organisations encourage and support staff to tend to their own stress, understanding that stress can be a source of unkind interactions. They can support kind interactions by providing training and coaching in communication, positive interactions, repairing minor grievances, conflict resolution, diversity and self-awareness. These skills can no longer be taken for granted but must be actively and intentionally cultivated.

Kind Leadership

Kind people and kind interactions need the support of kind leadership. I am convinced that to create a flow of kindness that sustains and protects staff, this flow must start at the governance level and extend throughout the organisation. Imagine if every leader in your organisation committed to creating a kind, healthy workplace that actively prevents burnout. Kind leaders understand that burnout prevention starts with eliminating the conditions that foster it, such as unrealistic workloads and unclear role expectations. This must of course include for the senior leaders themselves who are often facing unmanageable or unachievable workloads. Leader workloads are often exacerbated by the way that leaders tend to have high standards and a deep desire to do an excellent job. Leaders need just as much support as their staff if they’re to lead with kindness.

Staff now expect their leaders to be empathetic and trustworthy, and to support their career growth and well-being. Kindness can be thought of as a bit soft, and misinterpreted as going easy on people or being unfailingly positive. Kindness is not that fluffy. Honesty, integrity and being invested in peoples growth are all part of being a kind leader. This means that having high standards, having boundaries, providing discpline or feedback are all part of kind leadership.

Yet training and support for leaders to develop their human or soft skills and to balance empathy and kindness with clear boundaries and honest feedback are often lacking.

One of the sources of stress for middle managers and team leaders is being caught caught in between competing demands. On one hand they’re pressured by senior management to ensure high-quality service despite fewer resources, and on the other they’re expected to support their team’s well-being. Burnout is not just an issue for frontline staff. A report from DDI earlier this year reported that 72% of leaders often feel used up at the end of the day. They also discovered that leaders were deeply concerned about burnout on their teams but only 15% felt prepared to prevent employee burnout.

Kind Systems

Kind people, kind interactions and kind leadership are supported by kind systems. Organisations aren’t entities in themselves even though we talk about them that way, they’re made of people. These people are often following rules, regulations and guidelines that constrain their value based decision making. A kind organisation has clearly articulated values that are overtly expressed in behaviour. Values go beyond posters on the wall; they’re “live”, enacted and demonstrated in daily actions and interactions creating a feel of the ‘way things are done around here.”

These live values are like the heartbeat of the organisation, enhancing connections between people and providing a cohesion of vision, and guidleines for decision making that enable creativity. Policies and procedures often have a rigidity to them that blocks people who want to be kind. People are individuals with a variety of experiences, constraints and needs. Kindness requires flexibility to meet people’s different needs in different ways this helps establish and maintain equity.

Jason Fried claimed that “policies are organizational scar tissue. They are codified overreactions to unlikely-to-happen-again situations.” In health and social services, organisations are dealing with people in challenging situations, it is essential that leaders understand how trauma and pain can influence organisational decision making. In addition many workplaces are still integrating the impact of covid and recent funding and/or staffing cuts. The emotional impact influences peoples ability to make strategy and decisions. Policies should be created with input from those who understand the impact of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue and the emotional complexity of care work.

Future Ready Workplaces Must Be Shaped By Kindness

Kindness is a core competency for the workplaces of the future. It’s not just a “nice to have”, it will soon be something employees actively demand, becoming a key element for those who want to be an employer of choice. These workplaces will have kindness deeply embedded in ineractions, actions, leadership and systems, it will flow through every level. By doing so, organisations will eliminate, or mitigate the personal, societal and systemic conditions that lead to burnout, allowing all employees to flourish - and that’s what employees want.

Stay Kind,

Christina