Skip to main content

Be Wise, Be Nice :-)


A fascinating myth has been propagated for the longest time about nice guys finishing last. The idea is that being nice means being weak, nice equals naive and that being nice, especially in a leadership role, is a major roadblock to success and a recipe for disaster in the corporate world. 

Instead, one is repeatedly taught from a young age to relentlessly pursue power, and build authority without yielding an inch...

This type of control and command structure may have worked in a transactional space, where teams were mostly executing standardized activitites at scale and the Leader exerted authority through their position and subject matter expertize. 

Alas, the world is changing, and this could not be further from the truth now. With rapid changes in the rules of engagement at the workplace, growing "gig roles" across mainstream functions, decentralized / remote working roles, and never-before-seen levels of automation and disruption, there is really no place for the the archetypal control and command structure to hide.

Increasingly, teams nowadays are more localized and specialized than before, with varying degrees of autonomy. Therefore, Team members' needs and expectations from their leaders are also consderably different. Subject Matter Expertize is no longer a USP or a control lever. Information hoarding is no longer a power move. KM portals and other online tools have helped democratize knowledge to a consderable level. So, with the playing field being leveled, a leader is now required to engage and work their teams, rather than sit ahead of their teams. 

Being compassionate, considerate and sincere are not a weakness or "nice to have", these are rapidly growing to be the defining characteristics of an effective leader. These attributes are crticial building blocks to identify, nurture and cultivate rewarding relationships, within and beyond the teams. Positive relationships and networking are the biggest enablers of collaboration and success in the future.

So whether you a budding First Time Manager finding your feet leading people, a seasoned pro with decades of Corprate Management mileage, or somewhere in between, now is as good a time as ever to wise up and be nice :-)

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kodi - flying high in a brisk breeze!

Kodi  - flying high in a brisk breeze!!  Kudos to Durai Senthilkumar for taking a controversial subject like politics and delivering a non-controversial and engaging mass entertainer. Dhanush has done reasonably well and thankfully this movie is less of a hyperbolic hero worship saga than his earlier flicks like Maari. Emergence of leading ladies driven plots in mainstream movies continues with Trisha essaying what is surely the meatiest role in her career. She has given it a good go, tho her struggle to emote strongly is apparent in some key scenes, including the most pivotal sequence in the second half. Saranya has a slightly engaging role than her typical walk-in-sleep mother roles, but not so much that you would distinctly remember this role from her other roles. Cinematography and music are par for the course and nothing outstanding comes to mind from either discipline. CGI of Dhanush twins interacting is pretty clean. On the whole, Kodi may not be a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

My two pence on Kaththi

Anyone expecting an encore from the Vijay & Murugadoss combination following the success of Thupaaki is sure to be disappointed with Kaththi. Muragadoss earned his street cred in the Tamil film Industry through movies like Ramana & Ghajini that were lauded for their “intelligence”. After a disastrous 7am Arivu, Murugadoss recaptured his mojo in Thupaaki with his brilliant rendition of the “sleeper cell” network. However, that brilliance seems to have deserted him in Kaththi. At the heart of Kaththi is one man’s fight against the exploitation by a Corporate Cola Giant in a village in Tamil Nadu. Vijay essays the role of Jeevanandam, an Msc Hydrology graduate hailing from the same village, who takes up the fight with the Corporate Giant. And he also plays a second role, that of Kathiresan, a convict held in Kolkata prison. Jeeva and Kathir swap places through an accident, and the rest of the movie revolves around how each of them overcomes their respective ch...
Post a Comment
Read more