Why being a “nice” leader isn’t working
Strong teams don’t emerge from niceness alone. Good intentions, when untethered from clear standards and adult expectations, can quietly undermine accountability, performance, and respect. By challenging common leadership myths and reframing what teams actually respond to, this piece argues for a more mature form of leadership, one that is grounded, demanding, and genuinely developmental rather than simply agreeable.
“I support my team.”
“I protect them.”
“I make sure everyone feels heard.”
“And yet—they still complain.”
This is one of the most common frustrations voiced by leaders today. Many are exhausted from bending over backwards, absorbing pressure from above, shielding their teams from accountability, and smoothing every rough edge, only to discover that appreciation doesn’t increase, performance doesn’t improve, and dissatisfaction persists. That doesn't make sense, or does it?
At some point, a quiet but uncomfortable question emerges:
Is being a nice leader working?
Short answer: no.
At least not in the way most people define “nice.”
The illusion of niceness gets you nowhere good
“Nice leadership” often looks like availability without boundaries, empathy without expectation, and support without challenge. It feels human, caring, and morally sound. But over time, it creates unintended consequences.
When leaders try to be liked:
Standards quietly erode,
because the staff knows they get away with it.Accountability becomes optional,
because it seems to be uncomfortable.Difficult conversations are postponed or ignored,
as everyone else is doing it.Performance issues are softened or explained away,
as excuses are becoming the dominating reality.
Ironically, teams led this way often complain more, not less. Why? Because humans don’t thrive in vagueness or lack of boundaries. They thrive in clarity, challenge, and purpose.
Niceness without structure creates comfort, but this type of comfort rarely produces excellence.
Why people still wanted to work for Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs is often cited as the archetype of the demanding, uncompromising leader. He challenged assumptions, rejected mediocrity, and relentlessly pushed his teams to think differently. He was not universally liked, and yet, some people wanted to work for him.
Why?
Because Jobs offered something far more powerful than niceness:
meaningful challenge tied to a compelling vision.
People knew what excellence looked like. They knew their work mattered. They knew they were being asked to stretch beyond what they thought was possible. The pressure was real and so was the purpose.
This doesn’t excuse poor behaviour or emotional volatility. But it does reveal something important: people will tolerate, and even seek out, high demands when they are connected to mastery, impact, and significance.
The Devil Wears Prada: a cautionary contrast
The Devil Wears Prada offers another perspective. Miranda Priestly is the embodiment of uncompromising excellence. She sets impossibly high standards, expects precision, and demands full commitment. And people will do extraordinary things to be part of her world.
Of course, we need to mention here that the film also exposes the shadow side of this leadership style: emotional disregard, lack of psychological safety, and power used without accountability.
This is where many discussions about leadership get stuck, swinging between two extremes:
Be nice and be liked
Be demanding and be feared
Neither is sustainable.
The real work of leadership lives in the middle tension: high standards and human maturity.
Why “being nice” isn’t getting you anywhere good
When leaders complain that they “do everything” for their team, it’s often worth examining what that means.
Doing everything for your team can unconsciously mean:
Removing challenges instead of developing capability
Absorbing responsibility instead of distributing ownership
Protecting people from consequences instead of helping them grow
Over time, this creates dependency rather than empowerment.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: teams don’t resent leaders for being demanding—they resent leaders for being unclear, inconsistent, or incongruent.
People may say they want ease, but what they respond to is fairness, direction, and growth.
Respect is earned through standards, not niceness
Strong leaders are not motivated by the desire to be liked. They recognise that approval is neither controllable nor a reliable measure of effectiveness. Instead, they are anchored in commitment to the mission, the quality of the work, and the potential of people to grow. Authenticity ensures they stay grounded in what is real; awareness ensures they understand the consequences of how they engage with that reality.
In BEING, Ashkan Tashvir positions the distinctions Authenticity and Awareness as the foundational cornerstones of effective leadership and human functioning. Together, they shape how a person shows up in the world, makes decisions, and relates to others.
Authenticity, in this context, is not about self-expression or personal style. It is about one’s relationship to reality. It reflects the degree to which a leader perceives situations accurately, discerns what is happening from assumptions or narratives, and applies intellectual rigour to what they claim to know.
Awareness complements authenticity by expanding perception beyond the external world to include the inner and relational domains. It involves understanding oneself, your values, your reactions, and your biases, as well as understanding others and the broader context in which interactions occur. Central to awareness is recognising impact: how the world and other people influence you, and how your behaviour, choices, and presence affect those around you.
When authenticity and awareness are embodied together, leadership becomes both grounded and human—capable of holding truth, responsibility, and growth without distortion or avoidance
This means:
Setting clear expectations—and holding them
Naming gaps without shaming
Allowing discomfort without becoming dismissive
Challenging people while staying present
Respect doesn’t come from making everyone comfortable. It comes from being predictable in values and uncompromising in standards.
And paradoxically, when leaders stop trying to be nice, trust often increases—because the rules of engagement become clear.
The difference between tough and toxic
Let’s be explicit: this is not an argument for harshness, arrogance, or emotional neglect. Toxic leadership corrodes trust, silences contribution, and burns people out.
The distinction lies here:
Tough leadership challenges behaviour and performance
Toxic leadership attacks identity and worth
One builds capacity. The other destroys it.
The most effective leaders can say:
“This isn’t good enough—and I believe you’re capable of better.”
That sentence holds both demand and belief. And teams feel the difference immediately.
What high-performing teams crave
Despite what is often said, most professionals don’t want to be endlessly accommodated. They want:
To do meaningful work
To be stretched appropriately
To know where they stand
To be part of something that matters
They want leaders who can hold tension without collapsing into people-pleasing or dominance.
Being “nice” may feel safer in the short term. But leadership is not about safety, it’s about stewardship.
A More Mature Question
So perhaps the real question is not:
“Why do they still complain?”
But:
“Where have I confused care with comfort, and leadership with approval?”
When leaders shift from being nice to being clear, grounded, and courageous, something changes. Complaints may not disappear—but they become more meaningful. Performance improves. Accountability spreads. And paradoxically, respect deepens.
Because in the end, people don’t want a leader who does everything for them.
They want a leader who expects something from them—and walks beside them as they rise to meet it.