The article ends by discussing trust, and perhaps that is more fundamentally important than kindness -- kindness is one vehicle that allows trust to evolve, but

The article ends by discussing trust, and perhaps that is more fundamentally important than kindness -- kindness is one vehicle that allows trust to evolve, but probably not the only one. An environment of trust (and safety) allows open technical discussions and lets you come to decisions in a way that helps everyone learn and evolve without "losing face" and without breeding an undercurrent of anger and resentment. Knowing that each person is willing to listen to the other respectfully and that each person is prepared to say they are wrong, can improve the discussion rather than making it more wishy-washy. You need to have this if you're going to be working day after day, maybe for years with the same people. Lose trust and the feeling that it is safe to make potentially "stupid" statements, and people will just blindly follow the loudest most belligerent person because it's not worth the emotional cost of trying to engage in "debate". So maybe "Trust is Underrated" would be a better title for the original article.