- Employees who feel cared for are 70% more likely to go the extra mile.
- 91% of employees with supportive leaders’ report feeling safe to innovate.
- Embedding kindness into operations outperform on nearly every metric.
As another Christmas rolls around (how did that happen?) Ebenezer Scrooge, literature’s greatest example of a leader transformed, comes to mind. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge learns that a leader’s strength isn’t found in authoritarianism or control, but in kindness, generosity and genuine connection.
His change of heart, and action, made him wiser and more trusted. End-of-year crunch means that deadlines and targets tend to crowd out compassion, and it’s here that kindness can be one of leadership’s greatest strengths.
A Kind Leadership Style Builds Psychological Safety
A kindness based leadership style is about being consistent, respectful, present, and human. When leaders listen without judgment, openly thank people for their contribution, or show empathy during stressful periods, they create psychological safety. Psychological safety, in turn, is the absolute bedrock of trust.
Teams that feel safe speak up, experiment, raise concerns early, and share ideas without fear of embarrassment or retaliation. This year our Wellbeing at Work report, co-authored by Johns Hopkins University researchers, revealed that organisations which foster a culture of kindness, where leaders demonstrate that consistency, respect, presence, and humanity, see a measurable impact on psychological safety and trust.
The report saw that 91 per cent of employees at Best Workplaces report feeling safe to speak up and innovate, while overall well-being index scores rise to 4.07 out of 5 nationally when supportive, caring leadership is present. In environments where management is most trusted, well-being scores exceed 4.5, compared to just 2.3 to 2.5 in workplaces lacking an empathetic leadership style.
At a time of year when people are stretched thin, balancing work, family, financial pressure and fatigue, a leader’s kindness can be the difference between burning out or feeling ready to do it all again next year.
Kindness Fuels Innovation
Innovation doesn’t happen in environments ruled by fear or ego. It thrives where people feel valued, included and trusted. Kindness from leaders, taking time to ask, “What do you think?”, acknowledging someone’s strengths, or giving people credit publicly, opens the door for creativity.
The Wellbeing at Work research showed that organisations with “visible, supportive, and responsive leadership” experience greater willingness among employees to “share new ideas and try new approaches”.
When employees believe their ideas are going to be received with openness, they’re far more willing to take thoughtful risks. In the lead-up to Christmas, when many teams are planning and setting goals for the new year, kindness becomes the spark that encourages fresh thinking and ambitious new solutions.
Kindness Inspires People to Go the Extra Mile
When leaders treat people with dignity and understanding, employees tend to naturally reciprocate with loyalty and discretionary effort. Not because they are pressured to, but because they want to. As the year wraps up, many businesses rely on goodwill to meet final deadlines, cover extra shifts or deliver on year-end commitments.
Nearly thirty years of our best-practice data shows that cultures grounded in kindness create workforces prepared to step up out of respect for leaders who have shown care. Hub Australia, for example, found that enabling emotional support and recovery time increased resilience. At the independent living company InLife, 88 per cent of support workers said they intend to stay long-term, while REA Group’s supportive structures led to an 87 per cent positive sentiment for work-life balance, both markers of discretionary effort and engagement.
There’s a moment in A Christmas Carol where Scrooge’s workers would have done anything for him, not out of fear, but out of respect for his transformation. That’s discretionary effort. It’s not coerced. It emerges when people genuinely believe their leader cares. In the year-end rush, when you need people to stretch, that goodwill becomes invaluable.
Kindness Strengthens Collaboration
Workplaces are ecosystems of different personalities, stressors, strengths and pressures. Kindness acts as a social glue. Leaders who model patience, curiosity and generosity set a behavioural standard that others follow. When that system is coded with kindness, collaboration stops being a friction point.
Data from the Johns Hopkins report reveals that caring cultures, where leadership explicitly models these behaviors, see collaboration metrics spike. Throughout Australia’s Best Workplaces, a remarkable 96 per cent of employees say they believe that colleagues genuinely care for each other, compared to just 64 per cent in average, non-certified, workplaces. Certified companies carsales.com.au and Adobe Australia specifically invest in programs, peer mentoring, inclusive staff networks, and regular team recognition, to build deep, cross-team connections and fight isolation. People there say they feel comfortable asking for help or offering it.
Kindness acts as social infrastructure. It’s what allows teams with competing priorities and different working styles to function without constant conflict. When colleagues trust each other’s intentions, collaboration becomes less transactional and more genuine.
Kindness Has Tangible Business Benefits
Research across over 500 Australian organisations confirmed that businesses embedding kindness and wellbeing into their operations outperform on nearly every metric. For example, InLife significantly reduced mental health claims to under half the sector average by championing care and connection. When leaders choose kindness, they’re not choosing comfort over performance, they’re choosing the conditions that make high performance possible.
Scrooge spent years believing his authority came from distance and fear. What he missed: his employees were protecting themselves, not performing. They showed up, but they didn’t contribute. When he shifted to actually seeing them as people, asking about their families, acknowledging their circumstances, the dynamic changed. Kindness also shows up in the hard metrics of engagement, retention, productivity, customer experience and innovation outcomes, too. Trust increases, turnover decreases and problems are often solved earlier and faster.
Choosing empathy over ego and presence over pressure is a strategic act of leadership. And may be the best gift you can give your people this Christmas.
– Stuart Elliot, Director of Consulting, Great Place To Work
