As a leader, don’t be afraid to lead with kindness and compassion.

Some words of wisdom from the first ever woman president of WAN-IFRA - Ladina Heimgartner, when asked what advice she would give to female leaders in business. 

“Be prepared to demonstrate your value every day. This is especially important for a woman.”

“Don’t be scared to be a kind person and don’t feel you have to copy other people’s behaviours.”

“Be very clear in business - speak the business language.”

“Find the right balance between being a kind person and being a strong leader.”

Ladina Heimgartner, who is also head of Ringier Media and CEO of Ringier Media Switzerland, was being interviewed by Rianne Roggema as the Newsroom Summit in Zurich got under way on Tuesday (Oct 22).

Ladina’s advice reminds me of the two types of leaders highlighted by R Michael Anderson in his excellent book Leadership Mindset 2.0.

There are Driven leaders and Supportive leaders. 

Each have what I call allowable strengths and unhealthy sides.

As a supportive leader - as Ladina might say - a kind person, you are naturally inclined to nurture talent. You will like being part of a team, empathetic,with strong intuition. You are naturally supportive and nurturing.

However, you will also tend towards being a people pleaser and this may mean you do not have well-defined boundaries. Without getting the balance right, you run the risk of being overrun, being too self-sacrificing, and ultimately insecure.

As a driven leader, you are more naturally a leader who puts yourself forward to lead initiatives or teams. You are likely to be competitive, disciplined and confident.

However, your unhealthy traits are that you can be overly direct- aggressive, run roughshod over other people’s opinions, can tend to be cold and verging on aggressive.

The truly great leaders find a blend of the two, being driven and supportive, naturally leading and empathetic. It is a difficult balance to find.

And in times of stress, it is valuable to be aware of the unhealthy traits of your natural leadership style and what may trigger them and bring them to the surface.

It is certainly something I have learned from personal experience as I developed my leadership skills.

For example, when under a lot of pressure, I became aware I tended to be far more, let’s say, brusque and very direct. 

Only by working on my Emotional Intelligence did I become aware of the impact of that behaviour and when to recognise that was likely to surface.

And now, as a leadership development coach, I spend a lot of time talking to Executives about their style of leadership and to encourage them to analyse their healthy and unhealthy traits.

As Ladina advised at the Newsroom Summit in Zurich: Find the right balance for you between being a strong leader and one who is kind and understanding of the people you lead.