The A-Z of Leadership: Kindness

The dangers of being nice when you should be kind; what’s the difference?

I once had a boss (who I very much respected) tell me I was too nice to be a leader. At the time I didn’t really understand the message.

What’s the difference between nice and kind? Generally, niceness involves doing something that is pleasing or agreeable. By contrast, kindness is doing something that is helpful to others, or that comes from a place of benevolence.

Kindness is often expressed through actions that you take for other people, while niceness typically involves more superficial words or simple gestures. A nice person may tell a neighbour that they are sorry that they are sick — while a kind person may drop off some soup or offer to pick up groceries for them.

Being nice is a result of social conditioning and expectations of how we should act. In many ways, these unwritten rules are a good thing, leading us to be polite and helping us avoid conflict. Yet too often, niceness is prioritized over true kindness — which can be damaging and destructive.

To be kind is to be compassionate. I may have to make it clear to a team member that it would be in their own best interest to look for another position and help them find one. If I were just nice to them and did not want to offend them, I might well end up with an employee who is unhappy with their role and the performance of the team as a whole suffering. Worse still maybe even have another valued team member leaving!

I don’t relish conflict, not many people do, but sometimes I avoid conflict in order to be appear to be a nice person, when the better response would be to stand up for what is right (kind), not what is nice.

If I try to be nice all the time and avoid saying something which I might worry could offend someone, I may well not be perceived as being authentic or honest by my team who know exactly what I should do!

I now know what that manager meant when he said I was too «nice». I still sometime make the mistake he was alluring to all those years ago but with growing self-awareness, I’ve learnt to try to be «kind» instead

Cheers, Nick