Being kind and clear instead of ‘nice’ – and why the difference matters

Last week, I was one of the contributors to the Kindness Unites event, hosted by my fellow burnout coach Helen Rimmer who brought together a range of perspectives on one of the most valued of qualities in humanity.

I jumped at the chance to do this because in the coaching ‘room’, When we talk about values and our inner compass, ‘kindness’ is often near to the top for people as a principle they try to live their life by. Yet when we start to unpick what this actually looks like, particularly where feelings of overwhelm and burnout are present, what often emerges is that kindness is not necessarily being played out towards themselves or others.

This is usually because kindness can be confused with niceness but it's so much more complex than that, at home or work.

The Merriam-Webster defines kindness as: the quality or state of being kind; treating people with kindness and respect. 

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it is the quality of being generous, helpful, and caring about other people.

Yet, kindness is not just about being ‘nice’. It can be about being clear about our expectations of ourselves and others. Overwhelm builds because we haven’t been clear about our needs and our boundaries.  

As humans we may feel we are being kind if we:

• Avoid conversations that may make people feel uncomfortable – but instead we let a situation build that could have been nipped in the bud

• Accept behaviour we are not happy with to avoid upsetting someone – but instead end up feeling resentful or upset

• Take on someone else's tasks to lighten their load at work or home but instead make our own load heavier leading to an emptier tank for ourselves

• Tell a family member, friend or colleague, that we will only be ‘another five minutes, tops’ completing a task when we know it will actually take us a good half an hour, leaving the other person frustrated and irritable, feeling let down

• Tell a friend we don’t mind where we go socially, leaving the other person to come up with all the options (although you secretly do have an opinion and will probably air it once someone else has done all the legwork)

I wonder if you recognise yourself in any of these scenarios?

I have done all of them at various points in my life! All with good intentions of supposed ‘kindness’ to others and not wanting ‘to be a bother’.

Yet, do any of these scenarios feel kind to you? To yourself? To others?

Instead if we conceptualise kindness as clarity and, as the dictionary says, respect for others, we can see that these scenarios involve a lack of clarity from a misplaced conception of ‘kindness’ that lead to:

• Broken trust

• Frustration or resentment – yours or other people

• The continuation of unwanted behaviour

• Constantly crossed boundaries

• Deterioration in relationships

• Feeling overloaded, overburdened and taken advantage of

Think about these common scenarios (first one shared with permission) we face at work or home that I encounter in coaching conversations...

1.        An individual who was great at their job, got everything done on time to a high standard, was often asked by their manager to take on extra work. She kept saying yes because she knew her boss was busy and felt she was being kind to her by lightening the load. Yet, in reality, she did not have extra capacity and would end up staying at least an hour every day to complete the extra work instead of getting home to her young family. What in this scenario sounds kind?

• Kind to her boss? Not really, as the manager was under the misapprehension that this person both had the capacity and the willingness to do the task. By adding to the workload, the tasks were less likely to be completed to a high standard if the person was tired and overloaded. If the person had been clear initially, a workable solution for all could have been found.

• Kind to herself? No, she was feeling tired, frustrated and increasingly resentful that she was working longer hours and spending less time with her family. This had the potential to impact relationships at work and home.

• Kind to her family? No, one of her core values was family. By saying yes to extra work she was saying no to spending extra time with her children.

Conceptualising kindness as clarity and a refocusing on core values supported this person to reframe her responses and make the initially uncomfortable decision to start being more clear about what she was able to support within the resources she had.

2.        Are you someone who ‘hedges’ or ‘hopes’? Have you heard yourself saying “Well, I don’t really mind” or “whatever works for you” when actually you do mind and you do have a strong opinion on what you want or don’t want. Then when you don’t get the result you want, you feel resentful?

We tell ourselves we are being polite, helpful or kind so we unconsciously often hedge, hint or hope (as Dr Rachel Morris puts it). We soften everything and make things unclear. But if clear is kind, then being unclear is unkind because often then people have no clue on what we expect or need and then we wonder why our friends, families and colleagues cannot read our minds.

As I said earlier, this is all done with the best intentions and there are many reasons we might do this including:

• To preserve a relationship (although we often end up fracturing it through lack of clarity)

• We may have ‘rescuer’ or ‘people pleasing’ tendencies

• We are uncomfortable with conflict

 If someone is not behaving in a way that is acceptable either at home or work, it is kind or respectful to them to allow it to continue without the opportunity to change?

I’m not for a minute suggesting these shifts of thinking and behaviour are easy – we spend a good deal of time exploring, experimenting and talking this through in coaching conversations. But if kindness is important to you then remembering that the definition talks about kindness being treating people with respect might be helpful to remember.

So, kindness is very much not a ‘pink and fluffy’ concept. And acting with kindness isn’t always as easy as we think. Thinking of kindness as clarity offers us and others the opportunity to change and move forward. It may mean being honest and direct, even when that’s difficult to build trust and be clear about expectations instead of simply being ‘nice’ to avoid conflict or tell people what they want to hear. It can mean using truthfulness with courage and grace to communicate what you need, your boundaries.

It's a quality that requires some skill to action in certain situations. It starts with learning to listen to ourselves and others.

 Because, after all…

“Kindness isn’t the icing on the cake – it IS the cake” Dr Bob Klaber

 If you want support to have your own cake and eat it, icing and all - you know where I am!