Can " nice" people be managers?

[malificent7]

I've had some awful managers in the pasy. They generally tend to be quite scary types. My current manager is lovely and it made me wonder if I could be a manager sometime but I have been described as "not scary."
What makes a good manager? I used to teach so I can be orhanised.

Ye-es, I've got a small team and it works because they are good people who want to do a good job and I'm lovely (😁) and I want them to want to work for me.

My style falls apart a bit if I get someone who is not really up for working and wants to take the piss. Then we have to do a PIP and it all just gets horribly awkward and I hate it. And it messes up the team dynamics because everyone else resents them.

I remember interviewing really well for a nursing manager job (basically the senior nurse in the department). I didn't get it and the feedback was "fantastic interview but we felt you would be to quick to listen to your team" errrm.... Yes gosh we can't have managers doing that! 😂

Agree with this, there are three types and you need the middle one.

I currently have a 'nice' but inconsistent manager, I hate it, and he prides himself on how nice he is. It's just really really annoying. I need clarity and consistency.

I’ve had a complete mix of both in my lifetime. When I was young and starting out, I had a succession of absolute bellends and it really turned me off corporate life, in fact I’d even go so far as to say it left me with a lasting fear of management. Unfortunately, promotion usually involves managing people, and when people are promoted for one reason or another, (and let’s face it, a lot of the time it’s down to politics rather than actual ability - I’ve had some truly incompetent bosses too in my time), they take on the mantle of having to manage people and they are often woefully unqualified for that.

In more recent years, I’ve had some very lovely bosses so my faith has been restored somewhat.

'@GreyCarpet · Today 07:18

I don’t think 'nice' people make particularly effective managers because they are too concerned with what other people think of them, want people to like them and are too quick to agree with whoever they are talking to at the time which means nothing ever gets done and/or no one knows where they stand. They are ineffective and lose confidence.'

You have an odd definition of 'nice'. To me it is simply being a decent, fair human being.

It does not equate to pushover or people pleaser...

Sorry for my typos...damn phone!

My best manager ever was nice. She was fair, calm, consistent, she was also good at finding solutions. She would raise issues without being sarcastic or belittling you.
She wasn't a people pleaser or a pushover though.

I had ok managers before but I had ones that had favourites ones that would shout, ones that would scapegoat. So this one did none of that.

I disagree. It's a definition that has stood the test of time for me in all aspects of life.

For me, there is a big difference between being kind and being nice.

I have been told I am a good manager as I am caring and I do believe you get the most out if people by inspiring and empowering them rather than just dictating to them, unfortunately you have to be firm and sometimes do things that make you feel uncomfortable, I never enjoy disciplinaries or saying no to someone’s holiday but I have to remember to follow the fair policies and that I work for my company, not for the employees. I’m there to balance the needs of the business with the needs of the employees to a certain extent, get the work done efficiently and effectively. I can’t be friends with them and you can’t be too nice, you just have to be a decent person. Being kind is important but I agree you can be too nice and care too much what others think. Good managers are able to be disruptive and implement change and policy without being cruel, egotistical, picking favourites or turning a blind eye. Balance.

It depends what you mean by “nice”.

Totally agree with others here that being a real cunt is not consistent with being a good manager. Some empathy, people skill and ability to listen are critical. Bosses who are punitive or inconsistent lose people’s trust rapidly.

But I don’t think people pleasers are usually cut out for management. You have to have a bit of steel to avoid getting pulled in too many directions.

Nice is a very subjective thing.

My manager would define herself as nice. From her point of view she remembers to ask you about family issues, checks on your wellbeing and makes you a cup of tea from time to time. She thinks she is the perfect manager.

From my point of view she is awful. She sucks her teeth every time you ask to swap shifts for personal emergencies. She publicly tells you off for briefly checking our phones in a private office (usually for childcare related issues so we have to check them). I had a one to one with her to discuss my work related stress and the impact on my mental health and she told me "you don't need to be stressed, just forget about it" while in the same meeting delegating me more responsibilities.

She is hands down the worst manager I've ever had but she genuinely believes she is wonderful.

If you want to be a good manager then you have to listen and not deflect people's feedback. I think loads of managers try and be resilient to the point of ignorant, they think strength means ignoring negativity instead of engaging with why it's happening.

Well I'm a nice person and my team are great.
But I do find managing exhausting on occasion.
Sometimes people can be pretty moany.
Sometimes they don't take feedback onboard.
Sometimes they need to be more proactive. Sometimes they need to listen more and talk less.
Sometimes they are funny and brilliant & supportive and really excel.
We are all just human I guess.

Of course.

I'm a nice person who is a manager and I only employ nice decent people as other managers.

Decisiveness is a valuable thing I find with the managers I have had. Courtesy such as being on time for meetings too.

One of the things I think that leads to poor managers is promotions concentrating on their technical ability not their rapport with people.

Of course however, they also need to be able to have difficult conversations, be able to lead effectively and know the line between being one of the team and managing the team.

It's a tricky balance to strike for many and I would say managing isn't for the faint hearted, it can be tough to navigate at times.

I have had a few lovely managers. They were all funny, fair, hardworking, down to earth and unshakeable. I’m still friends with some of them now. They wouldn’t take any shit either.
One of the traits I noticed was that the good managers were always on the side of the people they managed, not necessarily the upper management.

A good manager should be kind, supportive, caring. You absolutely don't need to be scary or dictatorial to be a good manager - in fact I'd say that to be seen as such is a real negative.

But as others have said, you can't be too nice . You need to be strong. You need to be able to stand up for your team against senior management when needed, you also need to be able to have tough conversations with your own team about performance. You've got to be able to wear two hats and act as a representative for the business, enforcing policy decisions you may not personally agree with. You have to be firm and consistent, and able to put in place boundaries and command respect from your team.

You can be all of those things and still be a really lovely person. But being a lovely person isn't enough without the other attributes.

I have just left my management job.

I was a lovely manager, supportive, stepped in to do anything needed to support the team and my patients, accommodating where possible, compassionate but far from a walkover.

Consistently had great feed back from all levels but it drained me to the point my mental health was damaged. I took on too much as so many in the NHS do and it’s hard to sustain.

I do think the best managers have better boundaries but the NHS is so broken maybe it genuinely just is that the workloads are impossible. I’m a perfectionist so will work so hard to ensure everything is done, even when the requests from above are unrealistic!

I’m taking a small pay cut and going back down a level for my sanity.

I'm a Manager and have a great relationship with all my staff. They know I am approachable and they can talk to me about whatever they want. They are not scared to come and ask me for things because they know I am firm but fair.

But they also know I am not a pushover and there are lines that don't get crossed.

I buy them all easter eggs and advent calendars lol

Yes managers can by nice people, in the same way that teachers can - that they will be perceived as nice generally by people who are doing their best to achieve what they are supposed to. The same person can be perceived as not-nice by someone who is taking the piss, not putting in effort and not caring about rules.

I've had some brilliant managers and some terrible ones. One of the best once said to me that the main part of his job was making sure that anything getting in the way of me and my co-workers doing our jobs got dealt with - so anything that we felt "we could achieve this better if..." about would be his problem to solve. Managers then talk to Directors to set priorities whete different kinds of problems clash such that you can't always solve one without making aother worse so it's a complex balancing act. But it can be very interesting.

To be a nice manager you need to value the people who report to you, respecting their skills and experience and making sure their needs are met. You aren't making their jobs easier by reducing theur workload but by metaphorically oiling the rollers so that energy wasted on unproductive annoying things is minimised, and keeping the team motivated and positive about getting through the difficult bits.

Scary manager types wouldn't get near management roles in my organisation. Scary usually means zero people skills, very low emotional intelligence, and if those people manage others they do untold damage.

Management is about getting the best out of people, keeping people focused on what needs doing and why, being clear about expectations and performance standards, pushing them and stretching them to develop new skills if appropriate, allowing them to do new or uncomfortable things in a safe and supported environment, and building a high performing team with complimentary skills and strengths. Anybody who does this by being scary or just 'not nice' has entirely missed the point.

I think being a good manager is like being a parent. You need to be calm, consistent with feedback, supportive, praise the good, but know how to be firm if needed. You need to be able to hold your boundaries, shield your staff from the shit from above, but feed the important learnings down so they can grow & develop. You need to be their manager not their best friend, be fair in your dealings if you have multiple direct reports, and basically enable them to be competent individuals who can perform their job well & independently. Basically getting a kid to 18 🤷🏻‍♀️

I would consider myself a nice manager, firm
But fair, and supportive, and I've had really good feedback from everyone I've managed.

I think what has helped is personally having some awful managers in the past, so when I came to do it, I was very sure about what I didn't want to be like!!

It might depend what you mean by nice and by scary

i try to be fair, to listen to people and accommodate holidays or time off for personal matters and to support with workloads, training and personal issues to the extent I can.

But I also expect a certain standard of work, that people will treat each other with respect and decent attendance and punctuality and I will address these issues if they arise. I have had to let people go in the past for all these issues and have also had to make people redundant and to refuse flexible working requests because there wasn’t a need for the individual to be working at the times they wanted to work.

The hardest people to manage are the ones who want to do things their own way or to keep doing things the way they’ve always been done. This is because they block efficiencies, make it impossible for you to achieve the objectives which you will have been set for your team by your own boss and just can’t ever see the bigger picture just focusing on what they want for themselves. Those people will never think you are a “nice” manager however polite you are with them because they don’t actually want to be managed and will never understand that making decisions about workflows and work standards are what the manager is actually employed to do and most managers aren’t making changing or enforcing existing processes just for the sake of things but because there is either a business need for it or because the existing processes are causing a problem elsewhere and it’s worth at least experimenting with a change to see if that solves the problem.

Yes, on 2 conditions. 1. If it's a good organisational with sound values, efficient processes etc, and 2. If the manager's manager is also a nice person. I've seen the loveliest people turn into vile bullies otherwise and then it can be a horrific brainwashing cascade.