When I began shaping the Being HumanKind framework and writing the book that grew from it, I didn’t start with theories. I started with people. Rooms full of them. Designers, executives, founders, and frontline staff. Creative teams. Leadership teams. People who do their best in a world that keeps asking for more.
I listened. I watched. I paid attention to what actually helped them work well together and what quietly tore things apart. And the pattern, once I saw it, was impossible to ignore.
Teams didn’t need more complexity.
They needed more humanity.
And the leaders who brought that humanity into the room weren’t doing anything flashy. They weren’t performing warmth or manufacturing positivity. They practiced a steady, grounded kind of kindness, one that made the work clearer, the culture healthier, and the outcomes stronger.
Kindness wasn’t accidental.
It was strategic.
Not soft.
Not sentimental.
Not naïve.
A practical, repeatable way of leading that changed how people showed up and how work got done.
The more time I spent inside organizations, the more obvious it became. Most business problems were not business problems at all; they were relationship problems. Misunderstandings that hardened into frustration. Fear that disguised itself as compliance. Silence where honesty was needed. Creativity that shrank because the room felt unsafe.
When presence entered the room, everything else became easier: the hard conversations, the creative disagreements, the honest feedback. Clarity followed naturally.
Kindness didn’t magically solve these issues. But it softened the ground so they could finally be addressed. In conversations with leaders, I noticed something else. Trust wasn’t built through authority. It was built in small moments, the pause before reacting, the willingness to ask one more question, the patience to hear a full answer instead of a convenient one. People leaned in when they sensed they were being treated as human beings, not just roles.
Teams opened up when leaders practiced presence.
Presence seems simple, but it is often the first thing to disappear under pressure. Presence requires attention. Attention requires slowing down. And slowing down requires enough confidence to say, “This matters more than rushing through it.”
When presence entered the room, everything else became easier: the hard conversations, the creative disagreements, the honest feedback. Clarity followed naturally.
And clarity, I learned, is one of the purest forms of kindness.
Kindness is not avoiding the truth. It is telling it in a way people can receive. It is choosing honesty without harshness. It is naming what is real without stripping someone’s dignity in the process.
The leaders who embodied this did not lower their standards. Quite the opposite. They held the bar high but held their people higher. They expected excellence while offering support. They corrected without shaming. They stayed steady when others wobbled.
Their teams didn’t retreat under pressure.
They rose.
Kindness also had an external effect, a brand effect. You could feel it long before you could describe it. It showed up in how companies handled setbacks, in the tone of their communication, in how their teams talked about the work, and in the patience they brought to their clients.
Clients noticed.
Customers noticed.
And over time, those small acts formed a reputation: this is a company you can trust.
Kindness wasn’t just shaping culture.
It was shaping the brand itself.
And the brand was shaping the business.
Through all of this, one truth kept surfacing: kindness lives in the small, ordinary decisions leaders make every day. The choice to slow down instead of react. To ask instead of assume. To listen instead of rushing. To own mistakes quickly. To protect dignity in conflict. To leave space for someone else’s idea. These aren’t dramatic gestures.
They’re habits.
And habits become culture.
What I’ve learned after years in boardrooms, studios, nonprofits, and Fortune 500 halls is simple:
People want to be treated with respect.
People want to be listened to.
People want clarity, honesty, and steadiness.
People want to work where they feel human.
Kindness creates the conditions in which people and companies can grow.
And if Being HumanKind has taught me anything, it’s this: Humanity is not the opposite of strategy. Humanity is the strategy.
Kindness is how you make it real.
A creative leader for over three decades, Justin Ahrens stands at the intersection of design, strategy, and purpose. As Chief Creative Officer of both Rule29 and O’Neil Printing, he blends storytelling and strategic insight to help organizations, from startups to Fortune 50 companies, create meaningful change.
Header image courtesy of the author, © Rule 29.
The post Kindness Is Strategy appeared first on PRINT Magazine.