Nice or mean, which is better for your personal and professional development?

1. 69

   Joan Kingposted 10 years ago

   Nice or mean, which is better for your personal and professional development?
   
   I prefer nice but it seems like the mean ones are the ones who get ahead professionally and in business. Does a mean streak help or hurt one's success
   
   

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2. 61

   enamateurposted 10 years ago

   I feel that if you are mean in your professional career than your personal life might be lacking. I assume an aggressive business career usually means weak family ties. Emotional intelligence might not run high for these folks.

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3. 85

   gmwilliamsposted 10 years ago

   
   
   NEITHER! It is BEST to be professional and smart.  Being professional and smart will get one further in his/her corporate environment.  Profession means being cordial when need be and assertive when it is required.  Professionalism is effectively establishing and selling your brand to co-workers, supervisors, and higher level superiors.  It is knowing when and how to set reasonable limits in the workplace.  It is treating others with respect and demanding it for yourself from others.  It is not being the martyr and allowing others to treat you as a second class citizen or otherwise, a persona non grata.
   
   Being smart is as important as being professional.  Smart is the ability to be at the right place at the right time.  It is choosing assignments that guarantee a high visibility level.  It is prioritizing what is important and unimportant.  It is not indulging in work behaviors that would derail and jeopardize one's career path.  It is not volunteering for assignments that are a no go careerwise.  It is knowing when to be involved and when to mind one's business.  Nice and mean are totally nonissues in the corporate world.  The keywords to succeeding in the corporate word are professionalism and being smart. These components will get one further than either nice or mean!

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4. 65

   tsadjatkoposted 10 years ago

   
   
   My experience, in the corporate world and in education, has been that when employees (or students) refer to their boss, teacher or professor as being mean usually the problem doesn't lie with the target of their complaining and if you were to be objective their "mean" most often can be translated in the real world to mean effective, demanding, efficient uncompromising, competent, incompetent or any other adjective of successful people.
   As soon as "mean" is used as the descriptive bells go off in my head because having taught secondary education I know that "mean" is the favorite description adolescents use to describe anyone who has expectations of them.
   For example adults will say my boss (or professor) is incompetent, demanding, overbearing, a perfectionist,  unfeeling, unsympathetic, self absorbed, an as##o##...any number of adjectives before resorting to the "mean" card.
   Really, "mean" could mean anything (excuse the pun), different things to different people and is subject to infinite interpretations and is a descriptive that I doubt mature people would use in the context of "getting ahead".
   Now I don't mean to say that anyone will never encounter a mean person on their way up the ladder to success but it really isn't a grounds for criticism of anyone who successfully executes their job and is effective. If they truly are mean and you have looked into yourself to be sure that the perceived meanness isn't just your intolerance of what is expected of you or maybe an unfair assessment of their behavior then so be it - it will catch up with them.
   In the mean time (can't get away from that word) the best thing for your personal and professional development is to throw words like "mean" and "nice" out of your career vocabulary and concentrate on being the best you can - if you accomplish that you may find some day that some people think your success was due to a mean streak! :-)

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   1. 85

      gmwilliamsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      HIGH FIVE, couldn't have said it better!

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