For your consideration…
Last week I wrote a little piece linking “being nice” to personal excellence. I also made a (very) short pitch that the relationship was not only more than casual, but implied there were direct links to superior performance possible with this simple attitude adjustment. I purposely kept the article high on personal observation and low on empirical evidence just to see what kind of reaction I would get, anticipating this would be a topic of closely-held opinions.
I didn’t receive any comments one way or another, with the exception of a nice mention from fellow blogger Simon Stapleton.
Frankly, I’m a little disappointed. Not that no one commented – comments tend to be very scarce on blogs to begin with. No, I was looking forward to the counter-arguments presented, anticipating divergent viewpoints just as passionate as my original post. So with today’s article, I’m going to post yet more information to further support my position. This is a topic I keep my eyes on from time to time, and some of the articles I’ve found recently are fairly interesting.
First, a slight detour
To start with, let me say that I recognize simply “being nice” is NOT a leadership requirement. I tend to draw a rather blurry line between leadership and personal excellence on this blog, but this is one area where I think there is a clear difference. If you’re like me, over my career I’ve known many a leader. They each have brought their own unique mix of personal characteristics to their leadership style. It would be incorrect to say they were all nice. It would also be incorrect to assume that of those that were nice, “being nice” led to their position as a leader. There are plenty of effective leaders who aren’t nice, and there are plenty of nice people who aren’t leaders. So while I do maintain that being nice is a foundation quality of personal excellence, I do not feel that requirement extends to leadership.
So for the purposes of this post we are going to move into the realm of leadership, particularly what is called “positive leadership”. Yes, this is broader than simply being nice in the context of personal excellence, but frankly much more information is available on this topic (in some cases even research). I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on what finding if any carry over from positive leadership into personal excellence. Personally, I think there is a strong correlation.
So, why care about Positive Leadership? A recent meta-analysis (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002) shows three important things:
- The personalities of managers directly influence employee satisfaction.
- When employee satisfaction is high, positive business outcomes result.
- When employee satisfaction is low, negative business outcomes result.
It’s kind of hard to argue with that logic, now isn’t it? Obviously there is much more to the findings that the highly simplified statements above. The important point here though, is a rational basis upon which to examine positive leadership within, namely “positive business results”.
More definitions
Next, I found this great presentation by Dr. Marilyn Buckner with some good critical thinking around not only why Positive Leadership matters, but how to define and evaluate it. I invite you to scan through the entire presentation I’ve embedded below at your leisure. Here are the five broad dimensions that Buckner’s research found to define personality:
- Adjustment (Emotional IQ)
- Ascendance (Extrovert/Introvert)
- Likeability (Interpersonal Sensitivity)
- Prudence (Planful) – Planful? Did she just make up a word?
- Innovativeness
Here is where we start to move away from simple “niceness”, which in my mind would be most closely related to interpersonal sensitivity, to the broader concept of Positive Leadership. Interestingly, while the Harter, et. al. study mentioned above found that four out of five dimensions predict leadership ratings independent of the organization or occupational capacity, Likeability was the weakest determinant. (The strongest was emotional IQ.) I may sound like this argues against my own premise, but remember I am not longer examing being nice as an excellent trait, but positive leadership as superior.
The Buckner report is very interesting and again, I invite you to click through the entire presentation.
The costs of incivility
Another study I found, this one from the USC Marshall School of Business, suggested that managers should not discount the impact of being nice. Focused on the rate of occurence of incivility in the workplace and it’s consequences, this study estimated that a “Fortune 1000 executive has to spend an average of 13 percent of his or her time mediating disputes and consoling demoralized workers, amounting to nearly seven weeks per year per executive.” The study ended up with some relevant concrete recommendations, which I’ll summarize here. Click over to the full report for detailed information:
- Set zero-tolerance expectations
- Take an honest look in the mirror
- Weed out trouble before it enters your organization
- Teach civility
- Put your ear to the ground and listen carefully
- When incivility occurs, hammer it
- Heed warning signals
- Don’t make excuses for powerful instigators
- Invest in post-departure interviews
Personally, I’ve found numbers 4, 6, and 8 to be very hard to stay focused on. #4 because we all pay lip service to employee training, but very few follow through. #6 because this sort of thing simply isn’t a priority for most. #8 especially when your worst instigators are your best salespeople. No one wants to lose sales, but what kind of message are you sending otherwise?
Some Positive Leadership reading
So if you’re interested enough to find out a bit more on the topic of Positive Leadership – stay tuned here as I’ll certainly cover it from time to time. If you’d like to read some fantastic blogs dedicated to the topic, I highly recommend the following:
Each blog offers its own unique spin on the topic of Leadership in general, but all are positively focused.
The Harvard Business Review recognized Positive Organizational Scholarship as one the Breakthrough Ideas of 2004. Kim Cameron, cofounder of the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan, has presented some of the ideas coming out of that research in Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance. Amazon’s overview:
Positive Leadership shows how to reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and what Kim Cameron calls “positively deviant performance”–performance far above the norm. Citing a wide range of research in organizational development and psychology as well as real-world examples, Cameron shows that to go from successful to exceptional, leaders must learn how to create a profoundly positive environment in the workplace. They must build on strengths rather than simply focus on weaknesses; foster positive emotions like compassion, optimism, gratitude, and forgiveness; encourage mutually supportive relationships at all levels; and provide employees with a deep sense of meaning and purpose. In this concise, inspiring, and practical guide, Cameron describes four specific positive leadership strategies, lays out a proven process for implementing them, and includes a self-assessment instrument and a guide to assist leaders in the implementation process.
At just over 100 pages, this book is a quick read, but packed with great positive leadership strategies and tools. The best part is it’s cost at under $15!
Another good starter book I found in my searches, this one also under $15, is The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness
Final Thoughts
So, how to wrap-up this rather meandering walk through Positive Leadership and being nice? I would simply go back to a thought I threw out rather carelessly in my prededing post on this topic, that:
I have yet to see a situation that no matter how difficult, how contentious or chaotic, can’t be made a bit easier with a dose of kindness or consideration. Anger will only escalate the situation. While a kind word may not work miracles, there are times when it does.
I welcome your thoughts and observations.
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