Play Nice At Work
 
 
The New York Times recently carried an article about the growth at work of rudeness and bad behaviour over the last twenty years.  Christine Porath, the author, noted, “How we treat one another at work matters.  Insensitive interactions have a way of whittling away at people’s health, performance and soul”.  These interactions release hormones called glucocorticoids leading to potential health problems.
 
The more interesting part of the research on this topic looked at why we are uncivil and more than half said they felt overloaded with their work and 40% said they have no time to be nice.  Nearly half linked career progression to using their position power and being nice was seen as weak. Boss’s attitudes were enlightening.  Twenty-five percent believe they will be less leader-like if they are nice at work.  Nearly 40% feared they would be taken advantage of if they weren’t projecting a tough manner. 
 
There seems to be no shortage of bosses who can only muster position power, know it about themselves and so exploit it to the full because they are so insecure.  Strip away their titles and they are nobodies.  The way people become the boss is part of the issue.  The individual who can succeed and be accountable in their own little world is promoted to be in charge of others who are nothing like them.  They find that the skills that got them selected as leader are not what they need to be a real leader.  Their fall back strategy is to use their position power and lord it over their underlings, whipping them forward through fear.
 
Ironically, the Center For Creative Leadership found the number one characteristic associated with senior executives failure was their insensitive, abrasive or bullying style.  So we are left with a bunch of wannabe Napoleons, bossing us around and going nowhere in their careers.
 
What are we looking for in business?  We want our people to come up with ideas, innovations and creative solutions.  Some mini-me Napoleon type is not going to command anything more than compliance and so the innovation capacity of the organisation is hamstrung.  In such a fast paced competitive world of doing more, faster with less, this is a big opportunity cost.  From our own research on what engages employees to make the discretionary effort to go above and beyond, we found that feeling valued by the boss was the critical trigger. 
 
If the mentality is to beat people up to let them know who is the boss, then the “I feel valued” trigger never gets pulled.  Consequently, the ideas do not flow, the cooperation never eventuates and the information sharing doesn’t occur when you need it to happen. 
 
We want leverage, a next generation of leaders to be developed who can move the organisation forward.  Youthful employee tolerance for bad boss behavior today is very low and they simply vote with their feet and go across to the competition.  This is often after we have poured a lot of time, effort and money into training them.  Ouch!
 
Bosses need to become better time managers, so they are in better control of their emotions.  They need more time to be able to be  “nice”. There is nothing more disconcerting though, than working for a disorganized boss.  Everything becomes a vicious cycle of panic and emergency, because they are always leaving it too late or have neglected to do some vital step. 
 
Even those who are not terminally dysfunctional, are creating unnecessary issues because they have not learnt how to priortise their time and fail to dwell more often in preferred Quadrant Two of Time Management – the Not Urgent but Important box. 
 
Further, bosses who have not mastered the proper methods for delegating tasks are usually time poor.  They are hoarders of tasks, because their pathetic mantra is: “it is quicker if I do it myself”.  This and other similar delusions, ensure they are run ragged doing too much and usually doing it in a mediocre fashion.  They are also denying their subordinates the