Notes on Resilience 136: The Kindness Bank, with Ali Uren
No one will listen to you and really embrace you unless they know that you're there with the right intentions.
Ali Uren, founder of Kiikstart, challenges conventional thinking about what truly drives workplace success.
The episode introduces Ali's powerful concept of the kindness bank--a framework where leaders make daily deposits through acts of generosity, attentiveness, and support. These deposits create a reserve from which leaders can draw when difficult conversations arise.
Ali also explores adversity intelligence, the skill set, mindset, and attitude that allows individuals to transform challenges into opportunities while maintaining well-being. Compassionate leadership creates the conditions for adversity intelligence to flourish, providing teams with the resources needed to bounce back (and forward) from setbacks.
The conversation tackles why leadership development often fails in organizations worldwide. We frequently promote individuals based on technical prowess rather than leadership capacity, creating a fundamental disconnect between expectations and reality. Ali points to a critical gap: decision-makers often view learning and development as mere information transmission rather than a strategic business driver.
For those seeking practical ways to measure compassion in the workplace, Ali offers surprisingly simple but profound questions:
- How kind was your manager to you in the last two weeks?
- How did that kindness show itself?"
These straightforward inquiries provide concrete data points for assessing a leader's compassionate impact.
Visit Ali's website Kiikstart.com and connect with her on LinkedIn where she shares daily content on developing people and businesses.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
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Producer / Editor: Neel Panji
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