This is one of the most overrated mental models in the world. People often miss this because it’s not clear that kindness is helpful to achieving goals. We live most of our lives in cutthroat competition with other people, companies, and teams. However, competition and kindness are not mutually exclusive. You can win and be kind. You can be successful and kind. You can be a kind executive.
In my brief career, kind people have been the most productive, efficient and helpful people at each company I’ve worked at. They haven’t always been at the top of the organization (I think the payoffs to kindness are long term and longer lasting), but they’ve almost always been recognized as top achievers. It’s true that short term Machiavellian tactics do get results. Often times you see the best politicians and backstabbers reach the top the fastest. I’m willing to bet though, that they don’t usually last there. Manipulation has a habit of being found out, and if you stake your career on manipulation, the rest of your skills end up being pretty useless.
So build this mental model, use it, and reap the rewards. It only has positive externalities.