Give me a choice between working for a hard-driving, perfection demanding so-and-so and someone who is inordinately preoccupied with my feelings; I will take the former every time. It will be stressful, occasionally unpleasant, and the unyielding expectation of high performance will push me beyond my own perceived limitations over and over again. I want to work for a leader more concerned about my growth than my feelings. I want to work for a leader focused on helping us as individuals and as a group become ourselves at our best.
As hard as I push myself, I want someone to nudge me just a bit more to reach that next level of performance.
Give me an option to work for someone who is outwardly nice to me versus the boss who looks at me funny when I screw up or don’t think through the issue thoroughly; I will take the scowling version every time.
I don’t go to work for good feelings; I go to work to create, innovate, problem-solve and produce great results for my team/boss/firm.
If you perceive a funny look or even a scowl is disrespectful, you need a reality check and thicker skin.
Give me a choice to work for someone who lets me run with my ideas and own the outcomes and implications, versus a manager whose mission is seemingly to protect me from myself, my choice is clear.
High Performers Want the Push
And while those statements reflect my distinct preferences, my work coaching high performers indicates over and over again, that they want to be pushed hard to excel, 
learn, and grow.
They grow frustrated without opportunities and experiences to venture further away from their prior experience. And, they have little patience for the culture of nice that defines the operating styles of many managers in larger, suddenly sensitive organizations today.
I’ve not yet met a high performer who wants to be coddled.
Newsflash: if you have individuals on your team who want to be coddled, you haven’t worked hard enough at getting the right people on your team and the wrong people off of it.
Treating People with Respect is an Absolute Must:
On the surface, it’s easy to conflate the ideas of niceness and respect.
Don’t make this mistake.
- It’s a high form of respect when you care enough as a manager to recognize someone’s talent and to foster an environment that challenges them to move toward some future state of themselves at their best.
- It’s a high form of respect to offer frank, constructive, behavioral feedback and feed-forward.
- It’s a high form of respect to eliminate poor performers from the equation.
- It’s a high form of respect to allow people to set goals and then to support them and let them learn by sometimes tripping forward.
Alternatively, I can think of nothing more disrespectful at a base level than making accountability optional; passing poor performers forward and letting someone’s gifts languish because you are too nice to kick their butt and push a bit harder.
As you choose and develop your style guiding the people on your team, treating them with respect is non-negotiable. Striving to be that helpful friend, however, might be fatal for your high performers.
In reality, the nicest thing you can do for someone is treat them with honesty.
Beware Creating a Toxic Culture of Niceness:
I encounter a lot of cultures where some variation of the concept of “nice” is an aspirational value. It’s often reflected in that value statement focusing on respect. As described above, people conflate the two terms and concepts.
I spent some time observing in an environment where robust dialog (respectful but crystal clear, frank discussion) was viewed as contrary to the core value on how people were supposed to treat each other. It was “disrespectful” to focus on the problems and gaps and expect accountability.
Offering an employee, frank, constructive, behavioral, business-focused feedback and encouraging a dialog on improving, is a high form of respect, not an aberrant behavior.
Honesty was suppressed because it might hurt someone’s feelings.
Top management was confused about why the business results were deteriorating. Problems lingered. Strategies flailed and failed. Innovation dried up and disappeared.
They were rock solid about their culture and values.
In reality, the culture was sick. They didn’t want to face up to it. They couldn’t have the honest discussions, because it would have hurt feelings. Someone (many someones) would have to have been fired.
They did not have a happy ending as a business. Cause of death: a terminal case of niceness.
Heed the Words of those Philosophers, the O’Jays:
In my experience, cultures that preoccupy on nice as an aspirational goal are often incredibly toxic beneath the surface. Look closely, and you’ll spy extreme passive-aggressive behaviors carried out by silent assassins intent on derailing change, forestalling forward progress, or deposing an adversary.
It’s amazing how evil some people are while maintaining an outward demeanor of nice.
They smile in your face.
All the time, they want to take your place.
-Backstabbers, The O’Jays
The Coach Effect:
Many years ago, one of my sons lamented that his basketball coach “hated him.” I asked him why he thought that, and he described how hard the coach was pushing him in practice to hustle and execute on the fundamentals.
We had a good discussion on how hard that coach was working to help him realize his athletic gifts. I’m not sure it completely sunk in at that point; however, I’ve seen ample evidence in later years that this one understands how important it is to be pushed to become himself at his best.
I believe to my core that this coach who has labored in his role with great results for decades genuinely loves his players. He loves them enough to kick their rears to help them get out of their own ways.
Now, that’s my kind of nice.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I ranged far and wide here.
Good performers want help becoming great performers. This requires push, frank feedback, and the opposite of coddling.
If you truly want to be nice to someone, treat them with respect, and push them to become themselves at their best. You can smile in the process if it makes everyone feel better.
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