Ali Heywood is an RVN with over 25 years’ experience in education leadership, and quality assurance. She is passionate about shaping the future of veterinary nursing through quality education, compassionate leadership, and ensuring that the women in our profession can enjoy long, fulfilling, and sustainable careers.

Ali will be writing a series of blogs throughout 2026 linking to the BVNA Presidential theme of compassion and empathy. Check out the first blog here, which kick started the series in January. The second blog below is about micro-kindness.

Leadership is often framed as something big, strategy, vision, standards; but over time, I’ve learned that some of the most powerful leadership moments take no more than 30 seconds. They’re the moments when we choose to be kind.

At Dick White Academy, I see these moments every day, small, instinctive decisions that quietly shape how people feel at work. A few years ago, a colleague asked if she could leave work for a couple of hours to attend a funeral, not of a family member, but to support a friend who was grieving. I said yes, of course. Later she told me how much that small act of flexibility meant to her. It wasn’t really about the time off. It was about trust, compassion, and being seen as a whole person.

That experience reminded me how often we over-complicate kindness in the workplace. Many organisations have policies that define who count as “close family” when granting compassionate leave. But who’s to say who feels close to whom? Sometimes, the person we need to support isn’t a partner or parent, it’s the colleague who’s walked beside us for years.

I’ve come to believe that kindness often lives in these small permissions, the moments when we choose understanding over control. Saying yes when someone asks to arrive late to see their child’s nativity play might cost forty-five minutes of time, but it pays back tenfold in morale and loyalty.

We sometimes confuse recognition with reward. Teams are handed pizza or certificates to thank them for working themselves to exhaustion. The intention is kind, but the message can sting we see your effort, but not the strain it caused.

And then there are the glossy wellbeing posters, the ones stuck to the back of the toilet door that declare “We’ve got you.” If people are reading them while trying not to cry in the toilet, then it’s too late!

True kindness doesn’t happen through slogans or gestures; it happens in the small, real-time choices that prevent people from reaching breaking point in the first place.

Of course, some people will read this and think, “That’s easy for you to say, I’ve got senior managers who wouldn’t allow it,” or “If I do this for one person, everyone will expect the same.” I understand that. Fairness matters deeply in teams.

But kindness isn’t about special treatment, it’s about trusting judgement and seeing people as individuals. When a workplace consistently allows small acts of humanity, something shifts. People stop keeping score. They start stepping in for each other because they’ve experienced what flexibility feels like. The culture becomes self-sustaining: generosity in, generosity out.

Micro-kindness isn’t a loophole in policy; it’s the groundwork for a team that supports itself. Over time, it doesn’t create chaos, it creates calm.

I can almost hear the sigh from busy practice managers and head nurses: “That’s all very well, but I need my team in consults, not away from the practice.” And I get it; the pressure is real. When you’re short-staffed and the waiting room is full, flexibility can feel like a luxury.

But here’s the thing: research in both human and veterinary healthcare shows that compassion and flexibility don’t weaken performance, they strengthen it. Studies from the King’s Fund and the RCVS Mind Matters Initiative have found that when people feel supported, burnout drops, teamwork improves, and patient care outcomes actually rise ^[1,2]. Rowe’s work on micro-affirmations describes how small, positive interactions create belonging and psychological safety, key ingredients for engagement and performance ^[3]. Kindness, it turns out, is an efficiency strategy.

The nurse who’s allowed to leave an hour early for something that matters will often stay late another day without being asked. The vet who feels seen as a person, not a rota slot, brings more empathy into every consult. And when people feel safe and trusted, they’re less likely to burn out or move on.

Micro-kindness isn’t about letting people off; it’s about keeping them in, in the profession, and in the right frame of mind to deliver excellent care.

The beauty of it is that it costs nothing. Not money, not policy changes, not even much time. Just a short pause to ask, what’s the kind thing to do here?

Because people rarely remember how perfectly we followed procedure. They remember how we made them feel. And sometimes, the kindest and most effective act of leadership takes less than a minute.

References

1. West MA, Dawson JF. Employee engagement and NHS performance. London: The King’s Fund; 2012.

2. RCVS Mind Matters Initiative. Workplace wellbeing in veterinary teams. London: Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons; 2021.

3. Rowe M. Micro-affirmations and micro-inequities. J Int Ombudsman Assoc. 2008;1(1):45-48.