I guess I'm not really sure what your point is but it seems like you're saying being nice and delivering are not compatible. You can have high standards and ex

I guess I'm not really sure what your point is but it seems like you're saying being nice and delivering are not compatible. You can have high standards and expectations and still be nice. In reality no one is going to be operating at 100% all of the time. They will have good days and bad days. I assume that others are doing their best. If their best is not enough for the role they were hired for than I made a bad hire. If I cant find a way to communicate expectations and standards without remaining nice than I'm the one taking the easy way out. It's easy to be an ass and use emotion to make strong employees feel like they need to do better or deliver more. But at the end of the day your employees will leave once they have had enough. I've left jobs I was highly effective at because my manager was constantly pushing for more and more. I would have stayed much longer if they would have had the EQ to recognize that I was operating at a high level and praise and kindness would be more effective in the long run. Who cares if someone delivers more of X when they leave in 6-12 months? Every gain will be canceled out by the amount of time you will spend finding their replacement and training them. So to end my ramblings... If your point is that kindness can be abused... Sure. I agree. But is choosing to be kind and understanding, even if you feel like you are being abused at times, going to lead to you having significantly greater employee retention? Will choosing to act some other way cause your employees to leave which will drop their production from whatever % to 0% for an extended period of time?