Because you need to be kind more than you need to be nice.
Though both would be great!
But that’s the great disconnect. The disconnect between being kind and being nice.
Kindness has to include talking about growth areas. The euphemistically called “constructive feedback”.
Would you be happy to go around having people avoid you because no one told you your shirt stinks of body odour? Or would you prefer someone to be kind and let you know so that you could change shirts and be around people without them turning a hue of green?
When it comes to work, I’m seeing much of your team prefer to keep the stinker on rather than deal with the discomfort of knowing it needs a wash.
This is especially true if your business is in knowledge work – consulting, law, finance. In those areas, you’ll typically want to employ people who are hungry for growth.
But growth comes not only from experience, but from being open to feedback and contemplation about that experience.
And many in our teams, although they may say they want feedback, more often than not would rather have “nice” than “kind”.
Now if you deliver your feedback encased in a cudgel, then your delivery of feedback is seriously problematic.
That’s my feedback for you.
But let’s not, as we seem to be, throw out the constructive-feedback baby with the sadistic-mode-of-delivery bathwater.
And that’s your challenge as CEO. To lead and develop a culture where feedback is welcomed and viewed as kind. To help your team to see that kind and nice are not mutually exclusive even when to be kind is to deliver feedback on somebody’s growth.
How we can support you
- Join us on a workshop on how to scale your company; create time to focus on the bigger picture; and keep values and purpose core to your company. For max 5 CEOs of companies with revenues between £1.5m and £15m.
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- Talk to us to explore how we can help you scale your company in the direction you want to take it.