Aspire to be nice, not important

When looking towards the future, aspire to be nice, not important.

Our Student Editorial Calendar on LinkedIn this month encourages you to write about where you see yourself in five years, and how you plan to get there. More often than not, many of us interpret this as a certain title or job description that we want to have in the coming years. However, I do not want to aim for a title - I want to aim for impact.

While I have not been able to articulate this until recently, back when I was 10 years old my elementary school principal encouraged all of us pre-teens to aim for impact. At our 5th grade graduation, she quoted legendary businessman and philanthropist, John Templeton with a few simple words: “It is nice to be important, but it is important to be nice.”

It may be hard for you to believe that these words still stick with me 15 years later, but they continue to guide my professional and personal decisions and hold true for me every day.

Let me start by breaking down the definition of what it means to be nice. The simple definitions of nice, according to Meriam-Webster online, include:

• Giving pleasure or joy
• Attractive or of good quality
• Kind, polite, and friendly

The more archaic definitions often refer to being nice as coy, fine or reserved, but that is not what I believe John Templeton or my elementary school principal meant when they encouraged us to be nice (and that is probably why these definitions are considered obsolete!).

I believe to be a nice person means you treat others with dignity, respect and compassion

To be nice does not mean you need to agree with everyone around you, but you will still be kind and good-natured in how you express your disagreement and respectful in offering a conflicting perspective.

Let’s take a look at a scenario highlighted in AllBusiness online where there are two managers who want to be successful as team leaders. The first manager has distinct ideas on what motivates others and does not invite his subordinates to provide input on his managerial style. The second manager invites his subordinates to reach out to those he had managed before and challenge him if he is not considerate or fair as their new manager. At the end of the day, the second manager was nicer to his team and his perceived importance or respect was more highly valued over time.

Often, we see these managerial roles as a promotion earned through hard work and performance. That said, I believe that the most successful leaders see these roles as a great responsibility to develop and invest in your team, which is the kind thing to do.

In a world where we are told to aspire to a managerial promotion, the best grade, team captain, or project lead, we can easily focus on the importance of our title and not our temperament. Whether this manifests in having a few extra letters in your email signature or the corner office with the best view, we may find ourselves wanting to feel important and allowing hierarchies to define that importance for us. At the end of the day, I believe that the people you work with will remember you for the way you treat others and not for your title.

In five years, I hope to hold the title of “nice.” I want to be thought of as someone who treats all colleagues, regardless of title, with dignity and respect; I am confident this is where I will have the most impact.

This post was written as part of the #SpringForward series on where you see yourself in five to seven years and how you plan to get there, which is tied to LinkedIn’s student editorial calendar. Follow the stories here or write your own. Huge thank you to Wade Morgan, Samantha Selldorff, and Chris Tamasi for supporting this post and sharing your feedback.