In a Strategy Kickoff event that I facilitated on Sunday, a fairly new member of the team asked the CEO what’s important to him when hiring people:
“Be nice and mannersable”
The room fell quiet, a silent gasp visible from the looks on people’s faces. That’s it? Yes, he answered. That is all.
I know this sounds simplistic, but it’s cause for pause as this is a highly successful CEO/entrepreneur whose company has grown by double digits before, during and now after Covid. And he’s ticking up the momentum – the objective of the Kickoff was to engage the team around its 2023 target – doubling revenue.
I have interacted with this CEO over the last few months. The moment I met him I immediately felt he was a very nice man. It’s actually quite funny, as our calls always start with both of us laughing as we greet each other. In the very rare moments when he has been late for a call, he apologises profusely, almost embarrassingly so. And he’s smiling and pleasant even when berating his team, which I have seen a few times. It is obviously done without malice. He can be tough too.
I observed him in the Kickoff interacting with his team, spending time to greet and have a chat with individual team members. You would have never known who the CEO was, if you were a stranger walking into the room, as he showed no airs or graces. Being nice has worked well for him, and is a critical part of his success. And so he expects his team members to be the same. I also work closely with his senior leadership team, and they are all nice people too!
But he went further. He added that he looks for and expects his team members to be “mannersable”. Being “mannersable” in Jamaica means to have good manners. It’s a very valued trait that’s drilled into all Jamaican children from their very first “Say ta” (thanks). To be told you are “mannersable” is a great compliment. However, as with many values, its practice declines as we move through life, and becomes the exception rather than the norm. This CEO was putting good manners on the table, as a clear and explicit expectation of his team.
Throughout the rest of the event, everyone was repeating “Be nice and mannersable”. And I understand that the very next day back at the office, it’s not business as usual, but business “nice and mannersable”.
Is this CEO an aberration? After all, the common perception of effective leaders is that they are tough, no-nonsense, directive – not nice. Indeed, we all know this saying:
“Nice guys finish last.”
Yet here is this CEO finishing first, over and over.
The research bears out that niceness matters
In their HBR article “Nice or Tough: Which Approach Engages Employees Most? Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman give us the results of their research of 160,576 employees working for 30,661 leaders at hundreds of companies around the world. They found that:
“The people working for the really bad leaders were more unhappy than three quarters of the group; the ones working for the really excellent leaders were more committed than eight out of ten of their counterparts.”
However, they also discovered that being one or the other exclusively is not enough. They made the distinction between DRIVERS and ENHANCERS:
- Drivers are the “tough” leaders – good at establishing standards and holding people to them, pushing their team with challenging goals
- Enhancers are the “nice” leaders – the ones who practice the so-called soft-skills, are empathetic, and use inspiration and motivation to encourage people towards higher levels of achievement
By far, people preferred the enhancer approach but, according to their research: “68% of the employees working for leaders they rated as both effective enhancers and drivers scored in the top 10% on overall satisfaction and engagement with the organization.” In other words, to really get your team to perform at peak, you have to be tough AND nice. No-nonsense and nice make a winning combination.
Alain Hunkins, in his article “Tough or Nice? Which Should A Leader Choose?” agrees that leaders need to be both, but perhaps with a bent towards niceness. He identifies 6 characteristics of tough AND nice leaders:
- They are direct and caring.
- They are confident and humble.
- They are optimistic and realistic.
- They are passionate and calm.
- They are visionary, but also do details.
- They work hard and rest well.
In my experience as a leader and coach who values being nice and tough, I believe that underlying these behaviours are values of respect, caring and accountability – all demonstrated with a healthy dose of good manners. Because the other thing that every Jamaican child grows up with is:
Howdy and tenky bruk no square
Which means that saying “hello” (Howdy) and “thank you” (tenky) does no harm.
