Follow these practical steps to create a culture of kindness in your workplace.

Kindness is an attitude, consisting of behaviours, emotions and thoughts. Through kindness come respect and decency. They are all intertwined and vital, even though there is little in our external world, e.g. in the media, to promote kindness or even show that it is important.

Being considerate is necessary in all parts of life for many cultures. How it is displayed varies, and sometimes we find it in ourselves and in our personal lives. It is rarer and less expected at work.

But we need it regardless of who we are within an organisation and the sector in which we operate. It must be centre stage in the culture. Organizational structures and functions need to facilitate its use and existence.

We need to find ways to incorporate it throughout. Lessons can be learned from the way in which well-being initiatives are made part of an organisation. While these are an increasingly necessary part of the suite of offers for staff, they often remain at the level of the individual.

Usually, very little is done to promote those aspects of culture and structure that contribute positively to staff well-being and mental health, and simultaneously address the factors that are psychologically detrimental.

Leaders, show kindness

For kindness to be seen as necessary and important, we need to encourage leadership to be willing to show it and promote it for themselves and others. Leaders are the influencers of culture. If a leader demonstrates traits of kindness, then others will follow suit. Being willing to be kind to self and others may mean that you must change the leadership style you use to one that is more considerate.

This requires a great deal of self-comfort and self-confidence. And you may have to ignore those who interpret acts of kindness as weakness. If you are willing to let go of some of the more dominant behaviours and adopt a more democratic and understanding stance, then you will find it easier to show and expect kindness.

Start with yourself. Stop, pause and think about how you are looking after yourself in terms of self-care and self-kindness. When was the last time you took some personal time just because you could? Plan to increase your self-care and self-kindness.

A leadership programme for kindness may work, but participating in one is not a guarantee that the person will adapt and change. What is needed and should be expected is a behavioural change plan that the person is expected to implement.

Shift culture

Think about the culture your behaviours create. For people to be willing to show kindness, they need to feel safe enough and trust you and other colleagues. If these factors are not present, then all you will see is lots of fake smiles and gestures. Consider the range of leadership behaviours that is present. Discuss with fellow leaders how you can all change to demonstrate more kindness.

Remember, your employees may be wary but if you guide them and give them courage, they will start a wave of kindness that ripples throughout the organisation. Being considerate must become a way of life in the organisation, not an occasional afterthought.

Find out about and build on places where kindness already exists. Understand how the culture and staff have changed in the past. What conditions are needed for successful change? A key factor is involving people themselves as opposed to imposing change.

Think about how kindness can be further embedded in the work life and practices. For example, team meetings could start with praise and positive statements about each other. Planning for a project should include making sure that the tasks focus on being considerate not competing just for the sake of success.

Promote collective accountability

All the kindness interventions in the world will fail if any negativity and toxicity that are present are not dealt with, not just by leaders but also by staff. Let people know that you want to introduce collective accountability where all do their best to work from their positive side, be willing to look at what is negative and shadowy in themselves and in the organisation and then find ways of dealing with any negativity in an honourable way.

Doing this will lead to a culture within which kindness, respect and decency are more easily shown and embedded. Those who have been negative will need help to change. People who have been the targets require support to recover. Healing takes time, support and courage.

All this must be done consistently, otherwise people will not believe you and decide not to change. A very senior leader in an organisation made a very public statement about the importance of being considerate and that he expected staff to become more compassionate.

The next day he was heard shouting and berating his deputy in the foyer of the main reception. This was witnessed by many and so there was little trust in what he had earlier said.

Think about how often staff are praised and rewarded in a meaningful way. Everyone is fallible, even the best. And someone will, sooner or later, make a mistake. It is extremely rare that these are malicious in nature.

Think about how you can address these with the person or the team in a considerate way so that there is no unfair blame. Ensure that those responsible are helped to learn, the situation is corrected, and measures are put in place to prevent future problems.

Revise your administrative hardware

The backbone of an organisation consists of the policies and procedures and the organisational structure. Make sure that these are revised to reflect the new core value of kindness. How can you incorporate it into your code of conduct so that people use it in their daily work? Perhaps have regular discussions about collective accountability.

And finally …

We need kindness. It is a basic human value. Wouldn’t the world of work be amazing if we were kinder to ourselves and each other?

Anna Eliatamby is Director of Healthy Leadership, CIC and author of Building an Organisational Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy (Decency Journey Book 5).