Can Laid Back People have Good Leadership Qualities
Can people who are laid back be good leaders? After seeing the Buffalo Bills fire their head coach the other day, I was asking myself whether or not it was possible for a nice guy who cares about others to be a really successful leader. It is always good to be nice to people, but can you be a leader and still be nice to people? There are certainly some issues that come into play.
In order to lead people, they need to know who is in charge. If they think that you aren't in charge, and that you aren't someone who has to be respected, they might not follow you. One of the challenges of being a leader is that you need everyone to fall in line if you are going to get people to respect you, and get you to do what you want. That means you might have to get down and dirty with people sometimes to make them see who is boss.
What happens when a laid back person gets into a leadership role tends to be that this person just wants everyone to be friends, and get along. This is fine to an extent, but you don't want people mistaking your easy going style as something that can be used against you. Don't become friends with your subordinates unless you are willing to draw that line in the sand that says you are the boss. There is a reason why bosses have few friends.
If you are too laid back, you can become aloof, and seem as if you don't care, or don't know what you are doing. If you are trying to be friendly with people, or trying to get along with your customers, you could just start doing too much to get favor with them. Giving a break for bad service, or because a customer had a hard time is OK in spots, but you need to be firm with them as well.
It can be hard to run a business if you are laid back. It takes the guts to be willing to tell someone no, and that they can't always have what they want. It can also be hard to tell someone that they can't do what they want and they need to follow your lead. Running a business is about making money and not friends.
This is why it is hard for someone who is laid back to run a business, or any group. You tend to have people laid back as well because you aren't as focused on the job as you need to be. You can be laid back, but you don't want others to do the same because then the job won't get done.
