What Is A Caring Person: Seeing Good At Work

I have been noticing how frequently readers of one of my blogs search for the phrase "What is a caring person," and have been thinking about the answer to that question.

What does caring look like?
And is caring appropriate in the workplace?

In week 25 of Seeing Good At Work, the assigned practice is to notice, appreciate and acknowledge others. I remember when the practice of acknowledging others was suggested to me as a way of bringing harmony into workplace relationships. It seemed an impossibly simplistic approach to improving professional relationships.  At the time I had quite a bit of difficulty implementing the simple suggestion from my coach. Nevertheless, I stuck with it, because the atmosphere at the place I was working was pretty tense and I had nothing to loose.  Over time I began to notice that people at work responded to me kindly, more kindly than they were responding to each other, and one of my co-workers commented that it was because "you care."

It was as if a cartoon light bulb had been snapped on in my awareness; being a caring person can be that simple. It can be as simple as noticing, appreciating and acknowledging the people around me in an authentic and unforced way.


Edward Viljoen