The Trouble with Nice

In my early twenties, when I was studying at the University in Zurich, I had to take a state Latin exam to get to the next level. It was a level of difficulty that I had never had to deal with before, and I honestly couldn’t see how I could pass it. So I found a tutor, a retired university instructor. She was a philologist, which is a very old word for a linguist and a very right word for her, because she absolutely belonged to another era. She had spent her career working on a Georgian-German dictionary, was fluent in five languages, and had mastered two ancient ones, Greek and Latin. She was, in every sense of the word, formidable.

And strict. We worked through the Aeneid line by line, and as I read aloud she kept time with a ruler, tapping the meter against the edge of the desk. When I stumbled — a wrong vowel, a misplaced stress, a botched pronunciation — she’d bring the ruler down flat with a crack and say, “Again. From the beginning.”

I started a lot of lines from the beginning.

Needless to say, I was intimidated by her. There was no padding in her teaching, no “good effort,” no “I see you’re making progress.” Just that ruler and the expectation that I would practice, work hard, and eventually get it right.

My last session with her was the day before the big exam. I was visibly anxious and did very poorly in the lesson. I was just completely undone by the looming exam.

But that day, when I stumbled, there was no ruler whack. There was no starting from the beginning. She let me bumble through. As I was packing up to leave, she disappeared into her kitchen and came back out holding a pot of heavy cream. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “Put this on your muesli tomorrow morning, before the exam. It’ll give you strength.”

And then she said goodbye, shaking my hand in that formal, Swiss way, as was the custom back then.

This story stayed with me for years. I always thought of it as the strict teacher with the soft heart. Tough on the outside, warm underneath. The “ruler” was the outer veneer, the “pot of cream” the real her peeking through.

But now, I see it differently. I think the ruler and the cream were one and the same.

She wouldn’t have kept time on my Aeneid with a ruler if she didn’t care whether I passed. Her strictness wasn’t something I had to overcome to earn her kindness. Her strictness was her kindness. She was hard on me because she had decided I was worth being hard on. She wanted me to succeed. The ruler and the cream were one and the same — different ways to support me on my path.

I think of this now because some of the leaders I work with see strictness as getting in the way of kindness. As if, to be kind, you have to lower the bar a bit, make it easier for people, soften the feedback. Consider the way we give feedback, the so-called “shit sandwich” approach, dispensing praise and criticism in equal measure.

But warmth isn’t always kind. I’ve been coaching a leader, let’s call him Dan, who is really warm and approachable. He is easy to talk to, genuinely cares about his team, asks how they are doing, knows about their families. And he’s close friends with a few of them.

But no one on his team can tell him a hard truth to save their lives. They struggle to disagree with him. They don’t push back on a bad call, can’t tell him when something isn’t working, because his warmth makes it impossible. How do you oppose someone who’s being so nice? Would it hurt his feelings? Would it ruin the mood on the team? Would you be seen as ungrateful? Difficult? Not a team player?

Warmth can be useful, but warmth can also keep people at bay, like with Dan. His warmth feels like closeness, but it actually creates distance. It’s a way to avoid difficult conversations, to lessen conflict, to deny the power gap that everyone feels anyway.

You can’t push back on power that’s not being owned.

My tutor’s power, on the other hand, was completely clear. There was never a half-second of doubt about who held the ruler and who was sweating over the text. I knew exactly where I stood. And that’s why the pot of cream touched me so much. Clear power makes warmth trustworthy. Blurred power makes warmth suspect — you can never be sure if it’s a gift or some kind of ploy, an attempt to wriggle out of something uncomfortable, or to keep you from disagreeing or arguing.

And when someone holds the bar high, when they’re honest about your gaps, when they really want to hear your feedback, that’s really kind. They’re kind enough to be strict, kind enough to hold the high bar and risk being disliked. Kind enough to let you struggle and sweat today so you pass the test tomorrow. My tutor was willing to be the bad guy because she cared more about my passing than about my liking her. Dan, on the other hand, needs to be liked. His friendliness seems to be for his team, but it is also really for him. His team needs clarity and honesty more than they need a friend.

I’m sure my tutor has passed away. She was in her 70s when I worked with her, back in the 80s. But she definitely lives on. I think of that story often, when I have to do something difficult, and whenever I see a leader unafraid to hold the bar high, risking not being liked, and taking a difficult and unpopular stance for someone else’s sake.