Leading with Kindness: An Underrated Source of Better Business Results and Better Health

Kindness is often treated as a personal virtue rather than a leadership discipline. In business, it is frequently dismissed as soft, naïve, or incompatible with hard decisions. My experience leading Pitney Bowes suggests the opposite.

Kindness, when practiced deliberately and systematically, reduces friction, builds trust, lowers stress, increases retention and loyalty and improves performance, including innovation. It is not a substitute for accountability or difficult choices. It is the way those choices are carried out.

It is understandable to confuse “kindness” with being “nice.”  A 2021 Fast Company article entitled “Research Explains the Big Difference Between Being Kind and Nice. One has a Bigger Impact on Success” defines the difference this way:

“Kind leadership is defined by our research as creating a culture of taking concrete action to help others, addressing a person’s need, regardless of tone, and giving permission for real success and failure. Niceness, by contrast, typically centers on pleasing others and being polite so as not to offend.”

This is one of many studies and reports making this argument. Kindness pays off.

A Business Model That Couldn’t Last

When I became an executive officer in 1988, our leadership team knew something fundamental: the way we had recruited, retained, and motivated talent for decades was unsustainable.

Pitney Bowes was never a high-pay company. We compensated with stability, generous benefits, profit sharing, rich pensions, free healthcare, and deep two-way communication through a formal annual structure called Jobholders Meetings and a monthly structure called the Council of Personnel Relations. We were also early in promoting women and people of color and took pride in being a responsible corporate citizen. Despite the fact that other local companies paid far more, even our most talented employees stayed.

But the world was changing. Accounting rule changes made pensions and retiree healthcare prohibitively expensive. Medical costs doubled every six years. Meanwhile, digital communication was beginning to flatten and eventually shrink paper-based mail volumes. Competing successfully would require factory closures, automation, fewer service technicians, and leaner operations.

We faced a stark question: why would talented people join or stay with us once the old value proposition disappeared?

The Principle That Endured

When I was named Vice Chair and future CEO in 1994, I articulated five governing principles: Think Big, Work Together, Spend Wisely, Act Fast, and Live Our Values.

At the core of those values was a simple idea, the Golden Rule: Treat people the way you would want to be treated.

That principle shaped a culture grounded in politeness, humility, and small acts of respect. We were “kind,” although some would say we often erred on the side of being too nice. 

My belief was straightforward: people don’t give discretionary effort because of pay, benefits, or perks alone, or even with the promise of rapid promotion. They stay because they feel seen, respected, and treated with dignity.  More recent data supports my conclusion.  That Fast Company article cited a study of Gen Z and Millennial workers who responded that having management that enabled them to find meaning in their work was worth more than a 5% pay increase.  

Kindness During Transition

We tested that belief under pressure.

Profit sharing ended. We froze our pension plan benefits for those long service employees close enough to retirement that they relied on the existing benefit, but phased down pensions for everyone else. Free retiree medical benefits were phased out. Employees began paying a meaningful share of healthcare costs. Factories closed. Service roles were eliminated. These were painful decisions, and there was no way to make them painless.

But there was a way to make them humane.

We invested in retraining. We redesigned jobs to improve productivity without burning people out. We helped displaced employees plan their next chapter. Senior leaders,including me, met personally with people who were leaving, not to defend decisions, but to acknowledge the human cost.

Kindness did not change the decisions. It changed how people experienced them.

Small Acts, Large Effects

Some of the most powerful gestures were small.

When employees reached milestone anniversaries, I sent personal notes describing their contributions in detail. Many framed them at work and at home.

I made a point of sitting with employees in cafeterias and asking about their families, not just their jobs. I learned early that meeting employees’ children, listening to their aspirations, created bonds of loyalty no compensation plan could replicate. 

After 9/11, when I was required to fly privately for four years, I invited employees traveling commercially to the same location to join me. On weekends, I met with local employees in remote cities when I attended my son’s chess tournaments. In Connecticut, I engaged in conversations with them at our town and school events, or community gatherings, or in local cafes, diners, supermarkets, and movie theaters.  Accessibility wasn’t symbolic; it was practiced.

What surprised me most was how quickly kindness became contagious. Members of our executive team found their own ways to express it with employees, customers, and communities. Recently, when our CFO Bruce Nolop passed away, the outpouring of gratitude over many small kind gestures in which he engaged without fanfare reflected a finance organization led with humanity, not fear, and a culture widely practiced by the executive team. 

Removing Friction at the Source

Kindness is not just interpersonal; it is structural.

We adopted a “One Company” mindset to reduce internal rivalries. We increased the portion of incentive pay tied to overall results. We rejected forced-ranking systems that pitted employees against one another and amplified stress.

We flattened executive perks. We narrowed office size disparities. We penalized blame-shifting and rewarded accountability. These choices sent a clear message: respect was not tied to rank.

Even in sales, where stack ranking was unavoidable due to capacity limits, we found alternative ways to recognize strong performers without humiliating others.

When Kindness Is Tested

Kindness is easiest when it costs nothing. The real test is when it does.

Twice, we terminated high-performing sales leaders who violated our Standards of Professionalism. Both took business to competitors. We enforced our values anyway. Their supervisors later told me that, despite the business they took away from us, morale improved because people knew standards actually mattered.

During a factory downsizing, we faced threatened litigation. I met personally with the lead plaintiff, a third-generation employee. What troubled him most was not losing his job, but how his sons had been treated during recruiting. I apologized, met with them, and encouraged them to apply. The lawsuit was withdrawn.

Years later, an employment attorney told me my leadership style had cost him business. I took that as a compliment, especially when he said that our conversations with employees who had already been terminated accelerated the healing process these individuals needed.

The Business and Health Dividend

Over time, the benefits became unmistakable. A culture infused with kindness:

• Reduced internal conflict and social fragmentation
• Built trust across functions and generations
• Lowered chronic stress and anxiety
• Improved cooperation, retention, and performance

Kindness did not make us less competitive. It made us more resilient.

A Modern Imperative

Today, the stakes are even higher. Social media can amplify empathy or cruelty. AI can reinforce dignity or automate harm. Leaders now have tools to stress-test decisions for unintended consequences and to scale behaviors that build trust rather than erode it.

Kindness is no longer optional. It is leadership infrastructure.

If you are a CEO or senior leader wrestling with transformation, performance pressure, or workforce health, I welcome the conversation.

You can reach me at mikeceo@moveflux.com.