Good Leaders Arent Afraid to Be Nice

Some believe “old school” coaching is the only effective means of leading and to that I call BS.  Guys like Pete Carroll prove that you do not need to be a jerk as a head coach.  You can be human, even nice and still be a very effective coach.

There’s no advantage to being mean.

It only took me about three seconds to decide what to wear on the first day in my new gig as strategy director at Genuine Interactive, a digital marketing agency (jeans anda wrinkled linen shirt, duh).Deciding what books to take was a bit trickier. Sure, the niceness principles in Chapter 1 are great, but whats most intriguing about the book especially for a strategy leader is Chapter 8: Shut Up and Listen. Tara Back, my former boss and the new head of the event and experience lab at Google, used to say that success in an agency is when everyone wants you as part of their team.

It only took me about three seconds to decide what to wear on the first day in my new gig as strategy director at Genuine Interactive, a digital marketing agency (jeans and a wrinkled linen shirt, duh). Deciding what books to take was a bit trickier.

In a world filled with agencies, most of which offer the same services at roughly the same prices, the ultimate difference between success and failure is whether people want to work with your teams or not. It’s the same on the inside. Tara Back, my former boss and the new head of the event and experience lab at Google, used to say that success in an agency is when everyone wants you as part of their team.

In my experience, tough and nice don’t have to be incompatible. The most successful strategists are tough and intensely curious: tabloid reporters without the mean streak. The five goals listed in Chapter 8 are guides worth keeping in mind as my new team and I set strategy and I lead a new team: See more…