The Kindness Catalog Founder Explains Why It’s Cool To Be Kind

Does kindness really matter? Jessica Elom Ogbodo, founder of The Kindness Catalog argues that it most certainly does – now, more than ever – for female leaders

In an age of relentless demand and chronic distraction, one word feels almost radical: kindness. Not the ornamental nicety we offer in passing, but the decisive, practical kind that changes how we lead, live, and make choices under pressure. For ambitious women shaping companies, teams, and households, this is no longer a sentiment – it is a strategy.

For a decade, many of us were praised for stamina: how long we could stay online, how many roles we could hold, how elegantly we absorbed the next emergency. The metrics rewarded endurance. The culture applauded output. But beneath the sparkle of achievement, the cost quietly accumulated – tension that never released, sleep that never
restored, a mind that couldn’t stop solving. Burnout, for high performers, rarely looks like collapse; it looks like excellence maintained at personal expense.

Here is the pivot: the future of leadership will not be defined by how much we can carry, but by how intelligently we replenish. Kindness is performance architecture. When we meet ourselves with compassion, stress chemistry settles; cognitive bandwidth returns; creativity comes back online. We make cleaner decisions. We model steadier cultures. And we build success that is not rented from adrenaline but owned by alignment.

Why is kindness so difficult for women who lead? Because it requires boundaries in systems accustomed to our availability. It asks us to say no when yes is easier and often rewarded. It insists that we value recovery as much as results. And it challenges the outdated binary that softness undermines strength. In practice, kindness is rigor: the rigor to protect your focus, to calibrate your calendar, to choose depth over noise. It is not stepping back from ambition – it is stepping into a wiser form of it.

Self-kindness is also data-driven. Track one week of generous sleep and note the precision of your thinking. Buffer your mornings from your inbox and notice how much more strategic your first decisions become. Replace one people-pleasing yes with a principled no and watch the quality of your attention rise. These are not small effects; they are compound interest. The returns show up in clearer strategy, calmer presence, and teams that mirror what you model.

This matters for culture as much as for personal wellbeing. Teams don’t do what leaders say; they do what leaders normalise. A woman who respects her energy teaches permission. She demonstrates that excellence can be exacting without being extractive. She shows that kindness scales: from a leader’s calendar to a team’s cadence, from one meeting’s tone to an organisation’s morale. In a world of volatility, that steadiness becomes a competitive advantage. This philosophy sits at the heart of The Kindness Catalog and my signature Wealth From Within framework – created to help professionals transform compassion into repeatable practice. The lens is simple: build emotional, time and mental wealth so that financial results become sustainable, never purchased at the expense of your health.

To mark World Kindness Day on 13 November, I’ve designed the Bazaar Arabia Self Kindness Playbook: five elegant, trackable steps to help you operationalise care in your daily life. The invitation is not to do less; it is to do differently. To exchange constant urgency for deliberate momentum. To measure success not only by what you achieve, but by what it costs. Because kindness is no longer optional for women leading at the highest level. It is the most powerful resource we have – one that preserves our brilliance today and our capacity for tomorrow.

Jessica Elom Ogbodo is a certified life coach, NLP Practitioner, and founder of The Kindness Catalog, a wellness and coaching platform guiding high-performing professionals to redefine their relationship with stress and build lives that feel fulfilling, not just impressive.

5 Steps To Self-Kindness

Audit Your Inner Voice

Action: Catch one self-critical thought each day. Challenge it by asking “Is this true or just a story I am telling myself?” Rewrite it as a supportive, power-driven statement.
How to track: Note these in your phone or journal and review your week to see how your language shifts.

Create Boundaries

Action: Choose one commitment this week to kindly say no to.
How to track: Rate your energy levels before and after. Note the return on investment [ROI] of a single boundary.

Time/Wealth Ritual

Action: Block 10 to 30 minutes daily for calm (breathwork, journaling, meditation, self-care, or anything that lights you up).
How to track: Celebrate and reward consistency – this builds self-trust and confidence.

The Confidence Reset

Action: Before a high-stakes moment, pause for 60 seconds: close your eyes, breathe deeply, and recall one past win.
How to track: Observe how your body language, voice, or confidence shifts instantly.

Kindness ROI

Action: Select one recovery ritual daily (seven-hour sleep, tech off at 10pm, hydration).
How to track: At the end of the week, note one visible ‘return’ i.e. sharper focus, calmer skin, more energy.

Lead Image Credits: Generated Using AI By Hesham Rabea

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s November 2025 Issue