The Myth of the Nice Girl: Find a balance between being kind AND being professional with the help of this book! [Fridays: Mindfulness by Miles]
Miles Everson’s Business Builder Daily speaks to the heart of what great marketers, business leaders, and other professionals need to succeed in advertising, communications, managing their investments, career strategy, and more.
A Note from Miles Everson:
It’s time for a new read!
In honor of International Women’s Month this March, we’d like to share with you a book by one of the best selling female authors of all time: Fran Hauser.
We’re featuring this book because we’d like to emphasize the importance of being kind in the workplace without being taken advantage of or looked over in our jobs, personal relationships, etc.
Hauser’s book, though targeted primarily at women, can be put into practice by anyone who is struggling with people-pleasing or trying to gain “brownie points” in their jobs. Her insights will make you realize that you don’t have to sacrifice your true self just to achieve a rewarding career.
Continue reading to know more about this book and learn some tools you can use to stay kind and progress in your field of expertise.
Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute
Mindfulness by Miles
Pretending to be someone you’re not is challenging and risky.
In fact, Mary Morrissey, a life coach and personal development expert, says being someone other than who you truly are is unsustainable in the long run.
Why?
It’s because you won’t establish long-term positive relationships with others if you keep pretending to be someone else.
You can only build genuine closeness and relationships with others by:
- Showing your true self
- Sharing your vulnerabilities
- Communicating how you truly feel about things
… and other things related to authenticity.
Simply said, it’s by being true to oneself that you can attract genuine people, build lasting connections with others, and achieve a rewarding and satisfying career.
—
According to Miles Everson, CEO of MBO Partners, the business world garnered lots of negative attention for being stone-faced and cruel in the past.
The idea of making workers put on an invisible mask to conceal their true selves while at the workplace is prominently shown across various Hollywood films.
However, as society progressed and began to pay strong attention to authenticity, many businesses began to create a new reality of celebrating each other’s uniqueness at work.
… and as a CEO and business leader himself, Everson finds this lesson to be of great importance!
So, when his daughter came to him bragging about a new book and how much it helped her as a female worker who struggles with remaining kind while not being looked over, he figured he’d give that book a read as well.
THE MYTH OF THE NICE GIRL: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate
Photo from Quartz
This book is Italian author Fran Hauser’s bestseller. Here, Hauser aims to deconstruct the negative perception of “niceness” that women usually struggle with in the world of work.
While the published work is primarily targeted at women, Everson believes there are major takeaways that everyone, regardless of gender, can learn from the author’s insights.
Throughout the book, Hauser emphasized that individuals don’t have to sacrifice their values or hide their authentic personalities to be successful in their careers. She also went on to reclaim and reconstruct the idea of what a true leader looks like.
Everson agrees with Hauser’s leadership ideas and principles. He states he experienced working at a company where the boss had ruthless, tyrant-like blow ups if things got messed up. He also encountered many female workers who struggled with what Hauser emphasized in her book―that if they are nice, they are seen as weak and ineffective. If they are tough, they are considered rude.
It was also not until he read the book that he began to realize the exact personality traits he would want to see in a leader―the same traits he’d also like to apply in his own leadership style.
Sure, Everson wants a strong leader who’s ready to take risks and is bold in getting the job done, but he also wants a leader who is kind AND compassionate―not cold, aggressive, loud, or forceful.
For him, leaders must show empathy at times and be available to their team. He believes unless a leader is kind, compassionate, and understanding, the team will suffer.
Overall, Everson’s major takeaway from Hauser’s book is the importance of reflecting and realizing the types of leadership qualities he wants to use in his everyday life. He wants to be a leader who is courageous and capable of leading his company to success, yet not at the cost of making his people feel like they’ve lost their identities because of fear of him.
In other words, he wants every member of his company to be able to show who they truly are while developing their own skills and becoming effective leaders themselves.
His advice to his fellow business leaders and professionals?
Find a balance between being kind and being seen as a professional leader or worker!
If you think you are sacrificing who you are as a person at work, Everson encourages you to start showing your true self and ideas, and be open to others’ responses.
Who knows? Your team may actually like the REAL you rather than the person you THINK you have to be.
Give Hauser’s book a read! Let this help boost your career without sacrificing your uniqueness and authenticity as a leader or worker.
(This article is from The Business Builder Daily, a newsletter by The I Institute in collaboration with MBO Partners.)
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Fridays: Mindfulness by Miles”
High-performance businesses are run by people who think and act differently.
In other words, these are people who are high-performing individuals.
Companies and individuals of this kind have found ways to escape the grind of commoditization and competition by focusing on the RIGHT goals.
High-performing businesses and individuals are also “return driven” businesses and “career driven” individuals. They conscientiously develop unique capabilities and resources that allow them to deliver offerings in ways no other firm or individual can.
Every Friday, we’ll publish tips and insights from MBO Partners and The I Institute’s “The Business Builder Daily” newsletter.
These will help you gain knowledge on the things that Miles Everson, the CEO of MBO Partners, often talks about regarding the future of the workforce.
We’ll also highlight other mindfulness advice on how you can be a high-performing individual both in your career and personal life.
Hope you’ve found this week’s insight interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Friday’s “Mindfulness by Miles!”
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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