Stop Being Nice At Work – Managers Cant Be Nice & Increase Performance
Stop being nice at work. Being nice doesn’t help you do your job better, no matter what position you hold today. When you are a leader or manager, you can’t be nice at work and increase performance – of individuals or teams. Being nice holds you back, holds your team back and it stops you doing the best work you can.
In a bit, I will talk about what mangers and leaders need to do instead to earn a lot more respect, to build a lot more credibility and enable you to deliver much better results personally and through your team.
Stop Being Nice At Work – Managers Can’t Be Nice & Increase Performance
- Why being nice can be disastrous for you, your team and your business
- 7 actions you should take to stop being nice at work and instead be kind, fair and considerate
Being liked is a very fundamental desire of every person. Being liked is confidence building. When others like us, we feel more valuable, more appreciated and cared about. We all want to be liked.
In my late teens, I had a few big personal issues and I didn’t like myself that much. I was very nice to everyone around me to try to get them to like me. I desperately wanted to be liked yet being too nice didn’t lead many people to like me. So I tried even harder to be nice. Even less people liked me as a result. Being too nice is not being genuine or truthful. People don’t see the real you, so they end up distrusting you. Few people like those they don’t trust or don’t know. As soon as starting liking myself more, I stopped being as nice to others. This resulted in a lot more people liking me as a result.
This period taught me two incredibly important lessons early in life – the more honest and genuine you are, the more others will like you and respect you. The more you focus on the needs of others, rather than your needs, the more people will like you and respect you. Being too nice to others is much more about your needs, rather than theirs, which is why it doesn’t help you gain appreciation, respect and likeability.
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Why being nice can be disastrous for you, your team and your business
Some classic examples of being too nice at work:
- Saying yes to every request leaving yourself overworked and completely unable to deliver everything you have agreed to
- Staying silent in meetings or conversations even when you know an idea or solution has problems or is terrible, because you are worried about upsetting others or creating conflict
- Diluting your corrective feedback so much the other person leaves the conversation thinking they are doing a great job
- Avoiding conflict, or ignoring conflict, even though doing so hinders you doing your job or getting better results for the team
- Not asking for what you want or need because you are worried about upsetting the other person
All of these behaviours prevent you doing a better job. Being too nice prevents you doing your job to an okay standard right now. Being too nice prevents you helping others do a better job – for example because you don’t give them useful feedback. Also being too nice prevents you gaining appreciation, respect and help from others too. Not being able to do your job as well as you could – means more work for other team members. Not being open and honest damages relationships and teamwork, hindering the whole team.
Don’t be Nice
If you are a manager or leader, being too nice will prevent you improving the working culture; prevent you gaining credibility with your team and bosses; and it will certainly prevent you increasing team performance. This will leave you with much lower job security, little or no chance of being promoted further and a difficult resentful team to manage. You will also cost your business tens of £’000s – if not hundreds – in lost team productivity.
Stop being nice at work. You simply cannot afford to be nice as a leader or manager.
7 actions you should take to stop being nice at work and instead be Kind, fair and considerate
Your most important job as a manager is to help the team be more successful. With team success, every person in the team is better off. They get more respect, more status, more appreciation, a greater sense of self-worth, lots of satisfaction, a sense of belonging and contribution and more development opportunities and higher pay.
You bosses want you to improve the performance of your team. Your team members want you to improve the performance of the team, so they get all the benefits that come with higher performance.
The best and most lasting way to earn a lot of credibility, to increase your authority, to earn more respect, to be appreciated and to be liked – is to help the team be more successful and make gaining that success an enjoyable rewarding experience.
Creating successful teams means putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. It means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It means having difficult conversations and making tough decisions, it means sticking up for your team … i.e. taking a number of actions that might make you unpopular in the short term.
7 Actions To Take
Here are 7 really practical actions that you should take to stop being nice at work and help improve team performance. These include:
- Regularly giving really honest, clear and straight forward feedback to team members on how they can improve what they do
- Learn to say no diplomatically so that you can deliver on everything you agree to do, on time and to a good standard
- Speak up in meetings and share your views, your expertise and your solutions with peers, bosses and team members.
- Have the courage to challenge and question others in service of reaching the best solution for the team and business. Not the easiest nor most convenient nor the safest solution but the best solution
- Step into conflict – when taking action to reduce or stop the conflict means the team is better off or has less problems or distractions. Conflict prevents the majority from producing their best work.
- Step in to protect team members from unfair treatment, from too much work, from politics and infighting, even when this costs you personally in the short term.
- Care about team members enough to regularly communicate clearly where they stand against your expectations. The good and the bad. This gives them the best opportunity to always beat your expectations and deliver what the team needs for success.
Take Action
Take these actions in a diplomatic and considerate way. Demonstrate you have the other person’s or the team’s best interests at heart. You will find a team that loves you being their boss. You will be respected, admired and liked as a boss.
So stop being nice at work. Managers cannot be nice and still increase performance. Instead aim to be kind, fair and considerate. Tell it how it is without fluff; without hiding bad news amongst a ton of compliments. Be straight talking, clear and honest in how you communicate.
I know none of this is easy to start with. Take small steps. Get comfortable and then take a bigger one. Keep working at building your confidence and expertise in how you communicate – both in what you say and in your non-verbal communication. That is your tone, pitch and speed of voice. How you use pauses. How you use facial expression and eye contact. And how you hold yourself or stand. We trust non-verbal messaging a lot more than what is said because it is harder to fake.
So stop being nice at work. Be kind, fair and considerate instead.
in summary
Being too nice at work is doing a disservice to yourself and to those around you. Trying to be nice to others to get them to like you or to avoid conflict will result in you being liked less, not more.
As a manager or leader, you can’t afford to be nice at work if you want to earn the respect and trust of your team. Be kind, considerate, fair and diplomatic. Also be straight talking, direct, honest and clear in how you communicate. Be fair, not nice at work.
Can I ask you to commit to taking one action today. Think about a person in your team that is annoying you or causing problems. Think about why you are annoyed or upset by them. Lastly, think about the impact this is causing to you and your team members. What would you say to them to explain your answers to these questions?
Can I ask you to commit to telling your team member exactly what you think in a kind, considerate and diplomatic way. Would you do that today?
If you find this too scary right now, can you think of a person who you admire, respect and appreciate in your team. How would you praise them for a recent action or event? Will you commit to speaking to them today and giving them your praise?
Take this first step. Taking the next step will be easier and so on. Keep working at the 7 actions we discussed earlier and you, your team and your business will be a lot better off.
If you have any questions on “Stop Being Nice At Work – Managers Cant Be Nice & Increase Performance”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
Stop being nice! Be kind, considerate and empathetic as a leader but don’t be too nice. Your job is to increase the performance of the team you lead. There will be times that you have to make tough decisions in service of driving that performance. Being too nice will get in the way of doing your job.
Managers can’t be nice and increase team performance in my view. On the flip side, managers have to create a positive enjoyable atmosphere and team culture to get the best from their team members. You don’t have to be nice to achieve a great team culture.
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