Do 'nice' leaders finish last?
Posted on May 10, 2023 by David Watters, One of Thousands of Entrepreneurship Coaches on Noomii.
I reflect on my own leadership style and explores the origins and implications for leaders of the saying nice guys finish last.
I’ve always been confident in my own abilities and have held closely the values of fairness, transparency and treating people as I would want to be treated myself. In asking some of my colleagues how they would describe my leadership style, a word that often came up was ‘nice’. It got me thinking about the old saying of ‘nice guys finish last’ and the negative sentiment it implies – does this apply to leaders, and if so, is it something I should be concerned about?
The first thing I looked at was the definition of ‘nice’ via the Oxford English Dictionary:
“Nice, adjective – (of a person) good-natured; kind.”
According to everyone’s favourite source of ‘truth’, Wikipedia, the etymology of the phrase comes from the USA in 1946, a shortened phrase of a comment made by baseball manager Leo Durocher – The original quote was “The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place.” (1946 July 6), about the 1946 New York Giants — seventh place was next-to-last place in the National League.’
The phrase has been used in the workplace over the years to highlight a correlation between how ‘nice’ someone is and their ability (or lack of ability as the phrase implies) to climb the corporate ladder or be an effective leader. While a short internet search sees a raft of contradicting articles and discussions on why leaders cannot be ‘nice’ or why they have to be ‘nice’ – so which is it?
A TED talk by Christine Porath from January 2018 was one of the best discussions on the point I found. As a researcher on the effects of incivility on people, her research and summation of others in the field is incredibly insightful:
- The number one reason for executive failure was an insensitive, abrasive or bullying style (see: Off the Track: Why and How Successful Executives Get Derailed (Technical Report / Center for Creative Leadership, No. 21)
- The number one reason why people are uncivil to each other at work is stress – people feel overwhelmed (Porath, C.L. (2015). “No Time to Be Nice at Work”. New York Times, 2015)
The other reason why people are not more civil to each other is that they’re sceptical and concerned that by being civil or appearing nice they believe they’ll appear less leader-like (Porath, C.L. (2015). “No Time to Be Nice at Work”. New York Times, 2015)
So, if we know that the number one reason for executive failure is an insensitive, abrasive or bullying style, or what could arguably be described as being ‘not nice’, do we simply just be nice to everyone to be a successful leader? Of course, it’s not that straightforward – but, as a nominated ‘nice guy’, here are my views on it.
Firstly, there is never a suitable situation in the workplace where you should intentionally be ‘not nice’ – that is intentionally rude, insensitive or hurtful to people. I use the word intentionally because we all can (and do) lose our temper from time to time and we may find that in the heat of the moment we are not acting the way that we should be with people at work. Even in these cases, this behaviour is still unacceptable as one of the many jobs of a leader is to have the patience and emotional intelligence to remain calm at work. If you do have an incident with a colleague, rectify it quickly with honesty and humility.
It’s really important that the concept of ‘being nice’ is not confused nor conflated with the idea that being nice at work is the same as being liked by everyone. If you strive as a leader to be liked by everyone, you will never be able to have the honest, direct and sometimes difficult conversations that are both healthy and important to being an effective leader.
The key lies with your leadership brand, knowing what your leadership values are and ensuring that you practice them every day – especially in those difficult moments. For example, during a performance conversation with an employee, if I focused on being liked we’d end up having a very surface level conversation that doesn’t address or even acknowledges the core issue. My two values are fairness and transparency, so in this situation, I plan my language and the discussion to ensure that I’m being transparent as to why we are having the conversation, the data to support it and give the recipient the opportunity to discuss the issue openly and agree on next steps. At the end of the conversation the recipient, hopefully, feels like I have been fair and transparent – even if it means they may not like me at the end of it.
As Christine Porath concludes in her TED talk, the impact and cost of incivility in the workplace is huge and it’s on leaders to own and build a culture based on respect to see people thrive….Richard Branson said it best:
“There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.”
Have you ever been concerned you are ‘too nice’ at work? Have you changed your style as you’ve moved into leadership?
