Choosing kindness is a quiet act of rebellion for our troubled times

Zoë Wundenberg

The Examiner

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We live in a culture that still treats kindness as a personality trait rather than a skill. Worse, it's often dismissed as a liability - something you grow out of, toughen past, or learn to suppress if you want to survive in "the real world". But anyone who has ever led a team through crisis, navigated a complex workplace, or held a community together through uncertainty knows the truth: kindness is not weakness. It is one of the most underrated forms of power we have.

And right now, that truth feels more urgent than ever.

We are living through a moment where public discourse is dominated by aggression, absolutism, and escalating threats. Headlines are filled with leaders using increasingly forceful language, including the current US President's recent statements about Iran, which have been widely reported as particularly vehement and confrontational. At the same time, conflicts around the world continue to inflict devastating harm on civilians. Images of bombed neighbourhoods, grieving families, and displaced communities circulate daily. The cruelty of war is no longer something distant or abstract - it is visible, immediate, and relentless.

In a climate like this, kindness can feel almost nave. But it is precisely in times of heightened hostility that kindness becomes a form of strength.

Firstly, let's clear something up: kindness is not the same as being "nice." Niceness is performative. It smooths edges, avoids conflict, and keeps the peace at any cost. Niceness is about comfort - often someone else's.

Kindness, by contrast, is active. It requires clarity, boundaries, and courage. It asks you to see people as they are, not as you wish they were. It demands that you show up with integrity even when it's inconvenient, unglamorous, or goes unnoticed. There is nothing weak about that.

In fact, kindness is often the hardest choice in the room.

It is far easier to be cynical. Cynicism costs nothing. It requires no vulnerability, no imagination, no willingness to be wrong. It lets you sit on the sidelines and critique the world without ever contributing to it. And in a global environment where outrage is rewarded with attention, cynicism can even feel like the default setting.

Kindness, on the other hand, is an investment. It takes energy. It takes intention. It takes the discipline to respond rather than react. And it takes the maturity to recognise that strength is not measured by how loudly you dominate a space, but by how responsibly you move through it.

We underestimate kindness because we confuse it with softness. But kindness is not soft. It is steady. It is the person who keeps their voice calm when everyone else is spiralling. It is the colleague who gives credit away instead of hoarding it. It is the leader who tells the truth without cruelty. It is the friend who holds you accountable without humiliation. These are not small acts. They are stabilising forces.

And in a world that feels increasingly destabilised, stabilising forces matter.

In workplaces, kindness is often the difference between teams that merely function and teams that actually thrive. Psychological safety - the ability to speak up without fear of ridicule or retaliation - is built on kindness. Innovation depends on it. Retention relies on it. Trust demands it. And trust, once broken, is far harder to rebuild than any quarterly target.

Kindness also has a way of revealing character. Anyone can be kind when it's easy. The real test is whether you can remain kind when you are tired, stressed, or under pressure. Whether you can stay principled when no one is watching. Whether you can choose generosity over ego when the stakes are high.

That is strength. That is leadership.

People listen to those who treat them with dignity. They collaborate more openly. They take risks more confidently. They recover from setbacks more quickly. Kindness creates the conditions where people can do their best work, and that is not an accident. It is a deliberate, measurable outcome.

The world is not short on intelligence, ambition, or technical expertise. It's certainly not short on greed. What we seem to be short on is people who know how to wield their influence without causing collateral damage. People who understand that power is not proven by how many people you can intimidate, but by how many people you can lift up.

And when global leaders speak in ways that escalate fear, when conflicts intensify, when cruelty is broadcast in real time, it becomes even more important to model a different kind of power in our own spheres. We cannot control geopolitics. But we can control how we show up in our workplaces, our communities, and our relationships. We can choose to be the antidote to the hostility saturating the world around us.

If anything, the last few years have shown us that cruelty is cheap. Outrage is easy. Division is profitable. But none of those things build anything worth keeping.

Kindness builds trust, resilience, and community. It builds workplaces where people don't just survive but grow. It builds leaders who are respected not because they demand it, but because they earn it.

Kindness is not the opposite of strength. It is the expression of it.

And in a world that often rewards the loudest voice in the room, choosing kindness is a quiet act of rebellion - one that has the power to change not just how we lead, but how we live.

Zoë Wundenberg is a guest Echidna and a regular columnist.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you choose kindness? How do we encourage more kindness over hatred? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

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