I wrote yesterday about leadership and kindness, just as Carol Hymowitz was declaring that Effective Management Remains an Art Steeped in Good Relationships in her "In The Lead" column for the Wall Street Journal:
The more executives I interviewed and wrote about [after launching "In The Lead" nearly a decade ago], the more I realized that the effective ones review their own performance at least as frequently and as thoroughly as they review the work of their employees. They also constantly adapt their management styles to meet different challenges and to motivate different employees...
The best leaders...studiously avoid being self-absorbed. They celebrate their employees' ideas, knowledge and commitment, and they understand they must be both bold and kind to attract talent. [my emphasis]
Hymowitz echoes Bill Curry on the importance of leaders' kindness in building and maintaining high-performing teams, and again I'm struck by how often we cite leaders' boldness and toughness and how rarely we cite their kindness when seeking to understand effective leadership.
Postscript: Sadly, this was Hymowitz's final "In The Lead" column, as she has accepted a buyout offer from management, apparently as part of the paper's post-acquisition restructuring. (Jeff Bercovici has suggested that Hymowitz's departure reflects a larger pattern of bias against women at Murdoch-owned papers.) I truly appreciated Hymowitz's perspective, and "In The Lead" will be missed. Here's hoping she finds another outlet for her talents soon.
