LESSONS LEARNED: Getting to Teach "Kindness as a Leadership Trait" Course

Kindness is in low supply and high demand.

As an avid reader of a double-digit number of books on kindness, a Kindness Attendant in "The Kindness Community" (an online worldwide group), and someone who wrote a book titled Reversing the Slobification of America, I look for ways to share kindness and kind actions as well as encourage others to do similar things.

A couple of weeks ago, the 14-week Florida State University Jim Moran Institute for Entrepreneurship graduated a cohort. That was the first-ever group who got to experience the class. Since Shane Smith, Ph.D. took a chance by allowing me to do what became known as the "Kick-off to Kindness" as the start of each Tuesday's experience.

Here are a few lessons learned from the fortuitous opportunity to share facts, acts, and the impact of kindness personally and professionally:

Kindness has four formats: toward self, toward others, toward the community, and toward the world

Most people are the least kind to themselves

Encouraging people to be kind to themselves is a form of permission

A kind act done for recognition is SPORTSMANSHIP, a kind act done for getting someone to collaborate or sign a contract is BUSINESS, and a kind act done for another person to feel good and/or have an opportunity, whether that person knows you did it or not, is true KINDNESS

Kindness makes some people uncomfortable and they are not wrong, rather have likely not been exposed to kindness which creates the discomfort

Kindness can be learned

Kindness begets kindness

Kindness is super

Kindness is powerful

(It follows that) Kindness is a superpower, and it is a superpower each and every one of us can use for good

Whether you get to facilitate a course on kindness is not the point of this "lessons learned" segment, rather the overall awareness of how a kind word, kind act, and a kind heart are available to us all, and all of us, whether we know it or not, can use (and use the impact of) a lot more kindness in our lives!

Get the SCORE

"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching." - Aristotle

Often people want us to "check this out" or "take a look at this" because they "thought this might be interesting", and while that may seem thoughtful to them, it becomes a TO-DO for us!

When you have a team sharing things, ask for the SCORE before accepting what they are passing along. The SCORE is:

S - State. State what they are sending, not just "FYI"
C - Cover. Cover 2-4 points about the article, company, opportunity, person, etc. that they deem of interest.
O - Offer. Offer their ideas on the way it works, doesn't work, fits, doesn't fit, potential ways to use or avoid it.
R - Reference. Get them to reference their suggestion of what to do moving forward. What is his/her preferred next step?
E - End. What is the summary statement overall in what they plan to do or want you to do.

Since we teach people how to treat us, the same SCORE tip is true for you when you are sharing with others...family, friends, colleagues or team members, as getting the SCORE up front could mean a win later!

Quotations on Teaching and Learning

Some of my favorite ways of teaching and learning include reading, listening and sharing...

Quotations are a wonderful way to combine all of them in either a message, spoken in a group or written, so here are some of my favorites in regards to growth through classes/courses:

“Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three.” ~ Confucius

“It's not what is poured into a student that counts, but what is planted.” ~ Linda Conway

“Teaching is the achievement of shared meaning.” ~ D.B. Gowin

“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.” ~ A. Bronson Alcott

“The secret of education is respecting the pupil.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Enjoy them, and keep on learning, growing, teaching and sharing!