I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t able to generate a long list of words beginning with the letter K that I thought should be included among attributes of exemplary leaders. In fact, only two came to mind: kind and knowledgeable. However, AI software added keen and kinetic, among several hyphenated words. Between kind and knowledgeable, I chose kind as the winning K-word. There was no winning entry for the K-word this week.
When I went to the U. S. Post Office today the following message was sitting on the counter for one of the USPS employees: “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” I’d already chosen KIND to be the winning K-word, but the message from a USPS employee solidified my choice.
To understand why I chose kind, consider what it’s like to be led by someone who isn’t kind. Life is too short to put up with someone who isn’t kind.
Yet, with my belief that kind is the winning K-word, I was surprised to find that it was cited only twice as an attribute in my leadership book: Chris Lofgren used it to describe me in the Foreword[i] and the editor of The Arkansas Traveler used it in describing me during one of my defining moments as UA’s chancellor.[ii]
Clearly, it’s important for a leader to be knowledgeable, but knowledgeable of what? It is far more important for the leader to know how to lead than it is for the leader to know very much about the tasks performed by the organizational unit being led. A prime example of such a person is Donnie Smith who served as CEO and President of Tyson Foods.
If you’ve listened to my interview of Donnie at LeadershipWWEB[iii], you know that he did not “climb the mountain” in a traditional way of being promoted to replace his superior in the organization. Instead of climbing the mountain using a straight-line approach, he reached the pinnacle by taking on leadership of functions in which he had no previous experience. He held leadership positions in nearly all functions within the company.
When he met with my leadership class, I asked Donnie how he led an organization when he had no prior experience working in the unit and his educational background didn’t align with the responsibilities of the function being led. Donnie said that he met with people in the organization and readily admitted that he didn’t know their business as well as they did. Then, he asked them to answer three questions: “What are we good at?” “What aren’t we good at?” and “If you were king or queen for a day, what would you do to make things better?” Based on the answers they provided, he prepared his agenda. Donnie told my students, “The answer is always in the room.”[iv]
While Donnie wasn’t knowledgeable about the function, he was quite knowledgeable about how to lead. Not surprising, based on feedback I received from many people he led, Donnie was also kind.
Next: Leadership ABCs—L
Rules for the game to receive a signed copy of Why It Matters: 1) limited to U.S.A. mailing addresses; 2) limited to a single selection for the word; 3) cannot submit entry sooner than one week before the blog is posted on LinkedIn; and 4) send entries to me at johnaustinwhitejr@gmail.com. The earliest you can submit your L-word entry is 12:00 am, EDT, December 31, 2025; the latest time is 12:00 am, EDT, January 7, 2026.
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[i] John A. White, Why It Matters: Reflections on Practical Leadership, Greenleaf Book Group Press, Austin, TX, 2022, p. xi.
[ii] White, pp. 210-212
[iii] See https://soundcloud.com/user-561194034/.
[iv] White, pp. 29-30.
