We’re all familiar with the expression, “Nice guys finish last”. It reflects the views that nice people (“guys” can refer to both males and females) lack the guts, determination and, well, killer instinct to go in for the kill, take out their opposition or competition in order to win.
And winning can refer to making a company a financial success or winning the hand of a desirable young woman or man. Although any woman or man prepared to get involved with a not nice person is headed for a lot of heartache.
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past three years, I need to say something... the expression about nice guys is now VERY outdated and no longer relevant.
As my first (and only) batch of evidence, I call on the smirking Donald Trump who appears to still subscribe to this mentality. Shame.
In the world of Trump and his supporters, leaders have to be “kick butt cowboys”. You know... you have to show people who’s boss. And you do that by being a “no more mister nice guy”. Their reasoning is that, if you’re nice, you’ll get walked over, taken advantage of. And, in their warped world, that won’t get you anywhere.
Now, before you think I’m suggesting that we must let a bunch of wimps run our organisations, let me clarify something...
In the past, many companies have been run by toxic males. And toxic males think nice is weak. But they’re wrong. Nice does NOT mean weak. Nice does NOT mean afraid. Nice does NOT mean lacking in commitment, focus and determination.
Instead, nice usually means the person has empathy, compassion, kindness, gentleness, consideration, sensitivity and vulnerability. Nice people ALSO HAVE commitment, strength of character, determination, focus, purpose and a bunch of other attributes. If you’ve been following leadership trends lately, you’ll be very aware that these are the very qualities that leaders require today.
In the “industrial era” where command and control leadership dominated, people who displayed sensitivity were sneered at and laughed at as being weak and mamby pamby. They were overlooked for leadership positions. Many of those who were doing the sneering and laughing had usually bullied their way into leadership positions. That was the way it worked – like how the Wild West was won – with a gun in the one hand and a middle finger pointing upwards on the other hand. A case of, “May the toughest man win”.
People in leadership positions (predominantly men) considered any form of emotion to be a sign of weakness and even incompetence. Their poor wives and children must have gone through hell...
Now you can safely and confidently sweep all those little tin soldiers off the table now. They have no place in the world that has swiftly emerged post the pandemic. It was coming all along, but the pandemic provided a tipping point that accelerated the arrival of a very different workplace.
Apart from their technical/professional competence, leaders in the new dispensation also require, above all, emotional intelligence in addition to intellectual intelligence.
So... enter the new leaders - men and women who are astute, insightful, intuitive and... just plain nice!
These are the people companies are going to chase after. Why? Because these are the leaders who will prove by the way they engage, motivate and manage top talent that the performance and the results they achieve through their teams are why nice guys now finish first. Again, why? Because today’s talent wants to work for nice leaders. They’ve seen the limitations of the not nice leaders and will simply avoid those companies which persist with the “nice guys finish last” mentality leaders.
It’s therefore up to you to experience an “Aha” moment and see that you need to start recruiting leaders for qualities as well as skills. And you need to retrain your existing leaders to acquire those “nice” qualities. It IS possible – old dogs CAN learn new tricks... if they want to. They therefore have to be taken through a learning process that is insight-based, not information-based. Why? Because information doesn’t change behaviour. Insight does.