Nice vs. Kind
“Nice” creates confustion; be kind instead.”
Do you know the 5 Dynamics or tensions for Friendship Leaders? Here is the second.
Nice is great for friendships. It keeps things smooth, comfortable, and most importantly, conflict free. Nice when you are a leader creates confusion for three key reasons.
Nice obscures clarity. Often, when we push for clarity, we feel we could be rude, or mean. I have felt a bit patronizing or offensive when I have pushed for clarity. My response: soften the language and the emotion. Make my statements more agreeable. what I didn’t realize was that agreeableness and niceness doesn’t work to create clarity. People tend to hear what they want to hear and niceness gives them permission to do just that. Niceness says: “You are fine and maybe there is an adjustment or change to make but it really isn’t a big deal.”
Nice avoids conflict. Business is all about tradeoffs. Leadership is the same. Tradeoffs mean there are winners and losers. Nice tries to soften all of that and get everyone feeling good about that tradeoffs. This too creates a lack of clarity. One way nice works to avoid conflict is by over-explaining. Nice wants everyone to agree with the decision you are making as a leader so that there is no conflict.
Nice is about me. There is a lie in nice. The lie is that I want people to feel good. The problem with nice is that I want them to feel good because I need them to agree. Nice is essentially selfishness in disguise. In being nice I want to avoid my discomfort and control perceptions. This ego centric way of leading causes people to wonder about your real motives.
Nice is about agreeableness and likability. It is one of the core desires of Friendship Leaders.
Try kindness instead. “Nice” is self-focused and wants agreement, likability, and lack of conflict. Kindness is truly other-focused. You cannot be kind without the other’s best interests in mind. Nice, avoids, softens, and distracts, but it is really about my interests. Kindness is a much-needed addition to the difficult decisions and tradeoffs that leaders have to make but too often we choose “nice.”
Did you see the movie Money Ball with Brad Pitt? There was a scene where Pitt’s character Billy Bean had to let a player know he had been traded. Instead of calling him in and saying a lot of nice things, he delivered the straight truth simply, clearly, and with kindness.
One way to know you are pursuing kindness is that you use too many words to win others over when you have tough decisions to communicate.
Try This: Be a “Kind Jerk.” A client and I were working with her Friendship Leadership style and she had a break through. She lost it. She did what she would never do. She was a jerk. What she did was share her unfiltered opinion. It took her a lot of frustration and anger to push her there but the team changed dramatically for the good. When we discussed how to continue the team’s momentum, she declared that she wanted to be a jerk more often but with a caveat. She wanted to be a “kind Jerk.” What would it look like for you to be a jerk but in a kind way? If you are a Friendship Leader, then this is hard to imagine but come up with one or two ways you might give it a try.
