Should You Be A Tough Boss Or A Nice Boss?
You can largely divide managers into 2 camps. Those that put people first and those that put results first. But which approach gets the best performance out of a team?
To understand the question it’s useful to look at what we mean by ‘nice’ and ‘tough’ management style. On the simplest level, nice means treating your employees like part of a family. Tough means keeping things strictly professional. You could say one is about the heart and the other is about the head.
Popular examples might be…
Richard Branson
Steve Jobs
From my experience it’s the entrepreneurs who combine the strengths of both approaches that do best. Those who try and emulate the (exaggerated) ‘tough boss’ media personas of Steve Jobs and Alan Sugar usually fall flat on their faces after they piss off their employees and everyone quits. And how about those that are afraid of having difficult conversations with their staff about performance, attitude and commercial reality? They fare even worse.
All the best business owners I’ve coached share a rare combination of realism and compassion. They care deeply about their people and they devote themselves to their team – but they see clearly and they confront the reality of situations head on without rose-tinted spectacles.
In practical terms how you do this is all about emotional intelligence, setting clear expectations from day 1, catching people doing things right and being able to give feedback without threatening peoples’ sense of identity.
Now get back to your team and be the leader they deserve. Not Jobs, not Branson but somewhere in between.
