The Best Leaders Are Both Tough and Nice

September 16, 2013 Editor 0

Leaders often ask themselves whether it’s best to be tough or nice. If you’re tough — a “driver” — you can push people to go beyond the limits of their abilities. If you’re nice — an “enhancer” — you can better understand the needs, problems, and concerns of your charges. It’s a hard choice. So which style results in the more highly-engaged employees? According study of 160,576 employees under the command 30,661 bosses, the tough-versus-nice battle is tight. Eight percent of tough-led employees are highly engaged. Nice? Six percent. So tough-minded leaders are the winner, right? Not so fast. The most effective leaders, it turns out, use both styles, and 68% percent — that’s right, 68% — of their employees are highly engaged. That’s impressive.

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Categories: HBR, Insights