To think that nice people don't win?

[malificent7]

Warning...depressing post about human nature.
For example in the work place. For example I try to be smiley and kind at work. When a colleague was bullied out. ( also a nice man) I didn't join in with any of the bitching.
I personally felt he was mobbed as his English wasn't very good.
My boss favours loud, bossy people who let everyone know how great they are....I need to cultivate this.
In my personal life, being a people oleaser has made me a target for abusers.
I really have concluded that kindness is a weakness and peoole percieve it as such.
At work it is best either to be feared ( I am not scary) or just mega assertive to get ahead.
In your oersonal life, it is best just to be assertive.
I am so glad dd is very confident and assertive...no idea how...she didn't get it from me.

I agree that a lot of people perceive kindness/friendliness as a weakness.

I believe that’s their problem. I live my life the way I believe is right and derive a great deal of satisfaction from that. I always think oh well, I ‘d rather be me than them 🤷‍♀️

(ETA I’m pretty assertive too and I can assure you it doesn’t win you any friends, as a woman at least!)

There's a difference between being kind and being a people pleaser though. It's a balance.

You can be nice and also assertive at the same time. Saying no to people and having boundaries doesn’t make you nasty (or whatever the opposite of nice is) even if some people don’t like it. Basically, being nice doesn’t mean you have to do everything everyone wants, all the time.

Yanbu in general but I disagree with this

At work it is best either to be feared ( I am not scary) or just mega assertive to get ahead.

the most successful people I work with arent either of these. They have a lot of charisma and likeability but quietly are always looking out for no 1 in a covert /non overt manner.

Ie they are always nice when it costs nothing or stands to gain them something. They say no/do what they want quite nicely/in a reasonable tone as well and manage conflict well

I see this at work but not in my private life as such. I work in finance and in the 20+ years I've been there it's clear there is a 'type' who manages to work their way up. Not based on capability but mis-placed confidence. At times I'm envious as my confidence is based on my ability to actually do something.
I do have an obnoxious friend who doesn't get called out for her behaviour enough in my opinion but I've distanced myself from her in recent years.
I continue to teach my children that being kind is the best quality they can have and I still believe that's the case.

The ideal is assertive firm but decent. Sadly people despise fawning people pleasers but some usually women think this is the route to being popular

It is hilarious how bring kind and friendly in the workplace really annoys people. I have always lived by the moto 'kill people with kindness' some people are so miserable that being kind and friendly can make people uncomfortable. I've always stuck up for the underdog and called bullies out! You can be kind and friendly and refuse to be a push over. It's actually a powerful place to be

People-pleasing isn’t ‘kindness’, though. It’s putting your own needs aside for others because you need to feel liked, are afraid of a negative reaction if you say no, or because you think people won’t value you aside from your ‘services’. It quite often goes hand in hand (as here) with deep resentment.

It’s perfectly possible to be kind and assertive.

Can’t identify with any of this, what sector do you work in? The worst one for this sort of bullying is care/nursing.

I don’t think there’s anything sad, or indeed unexpected, about not respecting people-pleasers — a people-pleaser is saying ‘Don’t mind me, my needs don’t matter’ over and over, often for people they neither like nor respect, because they are afraid of the consequences of a no, or because they think liking/esteem can be bought, while resenting it.

You can be kind and assertive. We don’t have anyone we fear at work and if there were it wouldn’t be tolerated, they certainly wouldn’t be promoted.

It’s a requirement to be in a position of responsibility and be assertive in my industry. If we weren’t confident in our decisions and let people walk over us, we would lose a lot of money!!

Assertive is a much nicer trait than being a people pleaser. I see people pleasers as false and two-faced, I wouldn’t want to work with one.

Yes I work in nhs...care.

Not true in my workplace.

To expand slightly, with examples..I'm a teacher. If a student asks me for extra help I will offer it at a time that suits me. If they say no because they only want to use a study period and not lunchtime (time with their mates) then they don't get the help. If a colleague is overwhelmed I will offer to do a cover lesson for them or take a lunch duty for them, but if management ask me to do three in one day because they haven't planned properly, I'll say no. My private tutee asks me to go over an essay in the session, sure..their parent sends it to me at some random time in the week amd asks me for feedback before they hand it in the next day, then no because I dont work for free and am not at anyone's beck and call. As others have said, it's boundaries.

I've also learned the hard way that equating being kind with people pleasing is not the way to live life.

However, I don't think you have to be unkind to win at life either.

It's finding that balance of being kind when doing so isn't unkind to yourself. So, hold your boundaries and always aim to achieve your own priorities, but do so in a way that doesn't trample over other people where possible. It is hard. I often think that people who are naturally assertive probably had a very different upbringing and can't understand that if it was ingrained into your throughout childhood that you must be kind and please other people at all costs, it is extremely difficult to drop that mindset as an adult.

I think it’s more complex than that though.
You don’t need to be an awful person in the workplace to get ahead, but yes if you seem overly eager to please and compliant, it does seem human nature is for that often to be exploited. But being a people pleaser isn’t necessarily kindness anyway.

I’ve learnt to keep on being myself - smiley and generally amiable - but I do have an edge in that if I start seeing any disrespect or rude behaviour or potential for bullying towards me in a workplace I’ll challenge it. I’ve had to grin and bear some things in the past in the short term but at this point of my life I am not willing to let people get comfortable with disrespecting me in the workplace or in my personal life.

Similarly, in friendships I’ve had a few friends take advantage of my giving nature and have rarely reciprocated. Eg. For my 30th an old childhood friend who used to call me her best friend got me nothing. Not even a card. For her 30th the next year I sent her £300 to travel to another part of the UK with her kids to see her family who she missed.

The birthday is just one example but the whole dynamic of our friendship has meant I’m the one who has been giving to her since childhood , and she’s become entitled to taking. Shes not abusive or meanspirited but she definitely has taken advantage.

However, I had to give my head a wobble, and take accountability for having been such a people pleaser and entertaining such one-sided friendships and pull back on a lot of things in a few friendships.

I think the issue is if you let people take advantage of you and treat you badly in any context, they eventually develop a lack of respect for you because they sense that you don’t respect or love yourself.

In my personal life, being a people oleaser has made me a target for abusers

Being “nice” shouldn’t mean being a doormat or a people pleaser. And if that’s what it means to someone , it signals they need to do some work on themselves.

I’ve read somewhere that abusers will try their luck with more or less everyone that crosses their path , the issue is more that it’s the people pleasers/ low self esteem people who entertain them so they stick around with those people.

So don’t ask yourself why you’ve been targeted, ask yourself why you’ve tolerated it.

I think you need to find a better boss/workplace.

I'm like you OP, in that I approach work with cheerful good humour if possible, and try to be on good terms with everyone. I've worked in two places where the 'assertive' bullies were valued despite making people unhappy and not doing their jobs very well. It's usually where the bully has a character very similar to that of the boss, or they are friends.

The place I work now (small IT), my boss is no pushover but reasoned, calm and fair. He wouldn't tolerate bullying.

I agree op. The arseholes at work who shout how great they are always get paid more (stupid sliding scale determined by how much shouting and arse kissing you do)
And they know how to play the game

I am a kind, smiley, friendly person and don't (often) feel like this. In fact I regularly say to my husband that I've somehow ended up with a lovely life just by being kind. Fwiw I think there's a massive different between 'kind' and 'nice', I am not always seen as 'nice' because I do have pretty firm boundaries and can be pretty assertive. I've ended a fair few friendships when people take the piss - similarly jobs. As PP says I'm always quietly looking out for number one.

You can be assertive AND kind.

Assertiveness doesn't mean being nasty or aggressive.

Nor does it mean being loud, over-confident nor brash, etc.

It just means knowing your own mind, being confident, standing your ground, etc., and all that can be done with a smile, calmly, and respectfully.

I do advanced driver "observing", and part of that is assertiveness, i.e. when driving, knowing your rights of way, etc, which we teach as being all from a point of knowledge, i.e. knowing the highway code and the traffic laws etc., so we teach drivers to know who has right of way or correct road positioning etc in various common scenarios that catch people out and cause dithering, confusion, etc. We certainly don't teach aggression or arrogance, it ALL comes from a point of being confident based on knowing the rules/laws.

I have also been a target throughout life due to upbringing. People can smell weakness. If I was tougher, people wiuld leave me alone.

I was brought up by a chronic people-pleaser. It’s perfectly possible, with work, to unlearn those childhood scripts, if only because, as you’re now aware, they don’t work.

People don’t like or respect you for being unable to say no, or for doing things because you need to feel liked. So why do it?

I'm a teacher. Being kind (but with boundaries) is definitely viewed as a pretty essential part of the job. Our new Head is not kind (that's a whole other thread, and the previous Head was kind), but the teachers who are kind but firm are probably the most highly-regarded by students and by other staff, and the teachers on an upward trajectory promotion-wise tend to be ones who particularly fit that description. In my school, anyway.

You can be yourself (smiley and nice) but when needed be assertive and boundaried. People react a bit when they don't get the response they expect based on your usual demeanour. It's fun to remain calm and pleasant but not people please. Kill them with kindness my friend says!

Granted it might take longer for your talents to be noticed but I have found loud, show off types usually show themselves up in the end.

You can be nice and assertive OP.

People pleasing isn’t about being nice, it’s about getting people’s approval. And as such may be perceived as coming from a place of fear and weakness. It’s essentially a bit transactional.

Although I do understand how difficult it can be to assert yourself if you’re not used to doing so! Don’t aim to go from 0-100 but instead just try pushing your comfort zone slowly. Rather than acquiescing to someone else’s needs or preferences, try saying - ‘actually, I think xxx’. You could start by hedging with ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’, ‘sort of’, etc. if it feels less scary, and move towards expressing yourself more confidently. Or if someone asks you to do something that’s not convenient for you, try saying “oh sorry I won’t be available”. Start off low stakes and practice.

It also sounds like the culture at your workplace isn’t good – no one should be getting bullied out of a job. And meanness and bullying has nothing to do with assertiveness – it’s aggressive and underhand. It does sound like there’s a culture of fear. Might it be possible to look elsewhere?