If you were to ask someone what they think it takes to succeed in the workplace, words like kindness, caring, and softness would probably not be the first mentioned. We often believe that you must be aggressive and cutthroat to get ahead.
However, times are changing, albeit slowly, and softness is coming to the forefront. Posts all over social media discuss a desire to live a soft life or enter a “soft girl era.” These changes haven’t quite reached the workplace yet, but some people think they should.
Abby, a content creator who works as an Electronic Medical Record consultant, describes herself as “certified, badged, and living the soft life.” She frequently shares her thoughts on corporate life, and in a recent videoshe shared some scenarios in which it would be best to lead with kindness and give co-workers a break.
“Your co-worker missed a deadline? Maybe they’re drowning in silent responsibilities no one sees,” she suggested. “The new hire keeps asking ‘obvious’ questions? Maybe no one’s taken the time to properly train them.”
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“That email felt a little passive-aggressive? Maybe it was written in five minutes between meetings and a mental breakdown,” she continued. “Kindness in corporate isn’t weakness. It’s awareness. It’s leadership. It’s peace.”
She concluded the video by saying, “Be the person who brings calm, not chaos. It costs nothing to be kind, and it earns you everything that matters.”
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In another TikTok, Miller offered some advice, drawing from over 20 years of experience as YourTango’s CEO and founder. “I want to share with you one of the tippy-top most important traits/qualities that have led to people on my team getting promoted and really thriving in their career,” she said. “And that’s caring.”
Miller explained that caring can be a difficult thing to do at any stage of your career, whether you’ve just entered the workforce or you’re feeling burnt out after years of corporate work. “Caring is a superpower. It really is,” she argued.
“The idea of people that are solving those problems and making those decisions, doing so with their hearts by genuinely caring, whether it’s the senior-most people, junior people, even interns — the people that care the most are the ones that thrive the most at YourTango,” she concluded.
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Being a kind, caring person shouldn’t be a rarity, but it is becoming one. People especially don’t think it belongs in the workplace, where the general idea is to get ahead. And as BBC correspondent Claudia Hammond pointed out“Isn’t kindness about putting other people’s interests first? Doesn’t it require self-sacrifice?”
Hammond explained that, while being kind does mean that you put others before yourself, that doesn’t make it bad or taboo, especially at work, where we could all use a little more caring. “The traditional notion that you have to be ruthless, driven, and focused on number one if you want to achieve success is being discredited,” she added.
According to Hammond, there is scientific evidence to back up the fact that kindness in the workplace makes a positive difference, with multiple studies showing that to be the case. So, perhaps the next time you feel tempted to respond with a short, snippy remark at work, try to be a little more caring instead.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
