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From literature's ultimate discontented hero, Holden Caulfield: "Finally, yes, it's certainly best to be careful to not be an alienating bastard, a goddam phony. But still, sometimes you have to be an alienating bastard just to push back against the world." Or to be an effective corporate leader? Quite the opposite, suggests a study from Harvard's "evolutionary dynamics lab", which found that screaming, bullying and berating are leadership no-no's. George Patton and the Great Santini would undoubtedly scoff, but the Harvard experiment found that people who escalate punishment end up losing. The conclusion--it is in one's best self-interest to be nice. Try the subject study here the authors want to experiment on chief executives next. On a similar theme, Reuters CEO Tom Glocer muses on the power of positive thought on his blog. What works better, he asks, the dour group dynamics of the British boardroom, or the boastful, sky's-the-limit demeanor of their American counterparts? Once, he confides, a London banker advised him to stop smiling so much, because "investors and analysts would find it incongruous with the weak state then of Reuters." He notes, too, how the British boardroom focuses heavily on avoiding the negative--corporate governance standards require a strong Chairman to oversee the Chief Executive, and a Senior Independent Director to oversee the Chairman. Does this mean, Grocer asks, that business is seen as something inherently bad that needs to be constrained? It may just be that "societies tailor their laws and attitudes to business to suit their national character"; at least in the States, though, positivism--like nice guys--finishes first.
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