Why Kindness is Your Competitive Edge in Leadership and Life
"Calm does not erase frustration or anger; it gives you the choice of how to express it."
Pressure in business is not easing up. The economy has people on edge, the AI conversation keeps adding uncertainty, and your team still brings ordinary life stress into every Zoom room on top of it all. Heather McGonigal and Barbara Schindler talk about what kindness actually looks like on a team that is running hot, and why leaders who care for the human element will keep their people when other companies lose theirs.
Barbara opens with something most leaders miss. The triggering email and the "this is the most wonderful thing that's ever happened" message land on your nervous system with equal intensity. You label one bad and the other good, but your body experiences both as extreme energy, and most people walking into your meeting are carrying some version of it. Heather ties this to culture. When a leader sends a Slack message saying she is stepping away for a break, everyone else gets permission. When nobody does it, the one person who says "I need five" after a brutal meeting becomes the drama of the afternoon.
They also share the personal practices they use to get back to center. Heather asks herself, "What could I tell myself that would have things go better from here?" Barbara's word for the year is calm, and her cue is a simple question: "Am I calm?" Heather tells the story of a night waitressing in a packed LA restaurant when the computer system crashed and the credit card slips had to be run by hand, and Barbara compares sustainable energy to the battery in her Prius, which recharges while she drives.
Key Takeaways
- You have the most influence over your own state, so checking in with yourself is the start of leading others, not the last item on the list.
- Culture is whatever people see demonstrated. How a supervisor paces her workday, and whether she ever takes a break, sends green flags or red flags to your team.
- Calm and frustration can exist at the same time. Calm lets you express the frustration in a way that has the impact you care about.
- Burnout takes far longer to recover from than it takes to build a team environment that sustains itself.
Action Steps
- Choose one word, phrase, or question you can pull out of your back pocket under pressure.
- Tell your team when you are stepping away so a break becomes normal instead of noteworthy.
- After a big launch, use your one-on-ones to ask when people are planning time off.
- When you catch yourself multitasking in a frenzy, stop and name the single next task.
Questions to Reflect On
- Who are you in your team's worst conditions, when the tech is down and the inbox is overflowing?
- What story are you telling yourself about today, and is it helping?
- If a new hire watched you for one week, what would they conclude about your culture?
- Where does "how am I doing?" land on your list right now?
Want to talk through how kindness and self-care could work inside your team? Book a complimentary coffee chat with Heather and Barbara: https://www.empoweringleadershipteams.com/coffeechat
Tell us in the comments what word, phrase, or mantra you picked. Someone else might want to try it on.
About the Hosts: Coach Heather and Coach Barbara are the lead Executive Coaches of Empowering Leadership Teams. They specialize in helping entrepreneurial businesses and their teams meet the moment and become the most empowered they can be to work together and achieve optimal results. With deep expertise in leadership development, team dynamics, and navigating organizational transition, they bring practical, actionable wisdom to leaders facing the challenges of today's rapidly changing business environment.
Weekly Leadership With a Twist Newsletter:
https://leadershipwithatwist.substack.com
Subscribe & Review: If you found value in this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback helps us create content that serves entrepreneurial leaders like you, and it helps other leaders discover these conversations.
Questions or topics you'd like us to address in future episodes? Send us a message at or leave a comment on our latest post.
Cheering You On!
