After the Newtown, Connecticut shooting, a group of resilient community members launched a nonprofit called Newtown Kindness. Their mission is to ” to promote kindness as a guiding principle of humanity.” The organization aims to facilitate “acts of kindness within communities as well as raise awareness of kindness through education, sharing and recognition.” Their focus is primarily on youth but as leaders they invite us into kindness.
The band, Alternate Routes’ invites us to explore kindness even further. “Nothing More” served as a their rallying call for Newtown Kindness. Their song begins: “To be humble, to be kind it is the giving of peace in your mind”. They refrain “We are Love, We are One, We are how we treat each other when the day is done”.
It’s a song that sticks with you. Their song invites us to ask…what is the role of being humble and being kind in one’s leadership roles and responsibilities?
I recently learned of an example of leadership that has kept me thinking about the role of kindness in leaders. In Tulsa, there is a UCC church that has been the site of ugly protests. For weeks, anti-abortion and anti-LGBT protesters gathered under the UCC church’s rainbow flag shouting ugliness at community and congregation members. On Easter, the protestors showed up in force to further present their opinions to congregants attending their services. What happened next demonstrated the power of kindness.
As the protestors arrived, they were met with a bigger crowd than usual. Dozens of people from the interfaith and social justice community, Muslims and Jews, agnostics and atheists, lined the sidewalk in the rain, with umbrellas and stood as a barrier between the UCC congregants and the protestors. A leader from the church reflected, “I know we’re doing something right because so many people came to stand with us, to remember our reaching out as peaceful presence for them in the past. We’re doing something right because we are in relationship.”
As leaders, we too can be called “to be humble and be kind” because “we are in relationship” all day with our colleagues, families, and community members.
