Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 9

Should you nudge friends to pay up?

How much of a nudge should you be when trying to get reimbursed for a group gift?

A group of friends who have belonged to a book club for more than a decade were overjoyed to learn that one of the club’s members was expecting her first child. As a surprise, the group decided that it would chip in on a group present for their fellow reader.

After a flurry of emails, the group agreed on a present and one of the book club members, a reader we’re calling Paige, agreed to purchase the gift and then get reimbursed from fellow book club members. The idea was to have the gift in time for their next monthly book club meeting at which they could present it to the soon-to-be mother.

Two of the 10 book club members Venmo-ed Paige their share of the gift’s cost right after it was ordered. Once the gift arrived, Paige emailed everyone except for the expectant mother to let them know. In a reply-to-all on her email, another book club member asked how she would like to be repaid. Paige responded that reimbursing her via the Venmo app as a few others had already done would work fine.

Upon receiving the news, one more of the book club members Venmo-ed her share. That meant Paige and three others had paid their share and six more book club members were yet to pony up.

“How much should I nudge them to pay?” asked Paige, acknowledging that they all agreed to share the cost and know that she outlaid the money.

Paige wanted to know if it would be wrong to send an email to all of those who hadn’t paid to tell them they could pay her now or they could give her cash or a check when they passed around a card to sign at their next book club meeting when they planned to present the gift? “Does that send the message that I don’t trust them to repay?” Paige asked.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Paige sending a reminder to her book club friends. Partly, this will let them know of her plan to circulate a card for them to sign at their next meeting, but it will also provide a nice reminder.

The one risk of the plan to let those who owe money to pay what they owe when the card is circulated is that it could send the message to them to hold off paying their share until then. If Paige is OK with that, then her plan seems sound.

But the right thing would be to send it to everyone in the group (other than the expectant mother) rather than just those who didn’t pay. By doing so, she’d be including them on her plan and by naming them she would also make clear to others that those three had already paid up.

There’s no reason Paige should worry about being left paying for more than her share of the gift, but whenever someone agrees to foot the cost for a group gift for which others could reimburse their share, there’s always a bit of a risk. If Paige clearly presents options for those who have yet to pay, it will serve as a reminder and might provide her some peace of mind.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How smart do you need to sound?

How smart do you need to sound to get what you want?

Almost 15 years ago, I was invited by Bethany College, one of my alma maters, to give a talk in Bethany, West Virginia, to high school students who were finalists for a leadership scholarship. The handful of students had been invited to campus for interviews with faculty to determine who among them would get one of the sizable boosts to their financial aid package.

As the talk was winding down, students asked various questions, most of which were smart but polite. I then asked them if they wanted to know the answers to the questions they would be asked in their interviews. The students and their parents laughed and there was a collective, “yes” and “that would be great” in response. I went on to advise them that in my experience faculty liked to hear themselves talk, so they should do their best to get the faculty talking as much as possible during the interview. The end result if they could get the faculty talking, I told them, was that the faculty would come away thinking the student was very smart because the only thing they heard was themselves talking.

In spite of shifting to emeritus status this past July at the university where I taught for the past 12 years, I still occasionally teach there and elsewhere. At some point in each course, I find the need to reassure students that they do not need to prove to me or anyone else in the course that they are smart by trying to say smart things that may or may not have to do directly with whatever we happen to be covering in class. “Just do good work,” I regularly cajole them. That’s all the proof I or others need about their ability and dedication.

I bring this all up now as some high school students are in the throes of hearing from colleges to which they’ve applied or going through similar interviews that those prospective Bethany College students experienced 15 years ago. Worrying about what acceptance or rejection says about you and your abilities can be harrowing. But these things do not define someone nor their abilities or intelligence.

While it would be nice to believe college acceptances or scholarship decisions were an exact science, they are not. Sure, they are based on academic performance, extracurricular activities, leadership potential and determination of whether a prospective student would be a good fit for what the college offers. But often such decisions come down to how competitive the field of applications is in any given year since there are a limited number of seats available. Trying to sound smarter than you are to get in or get an award rarely is as good an idea as simply presenting yourself and your work as best you can.

Ultimately, the right thing is to just do good work. If a college admissions or a scholarship committee recognizes that, that’s great. If they don’t, it’s as much a reflection on them as it is on the applicant who can then go on to try to do good work someplace else.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

 

Should reader worry about spouse snooping?

Is it OK to look at more than you’re asked to when a partner asks for your help?

A few weeks ago, a reader we’re calling Vera was asked to do a favor by her younger sister. Vera’s sister lived across the country and had been experiencing some medical issues. She had received a letter from her physician, which she found confusing. So she asked for Vera’s help interpreting, since Vera, while not a physician, worked in the medical field.

Vera quickly agreed to take a look at the letter to see if she might be able to help. So her sister took a photo of the letter with her cell phone and emailed it as an attachment to Vera. After Vera received the letter, she opened the attachment and then found it difficult to read the letter since the image was blurry.

On past occasions when Vera had a technology challenge, she turned to her spouse for help since he, while not a technology professional, was fairly adept at figuring things out. After trying to enlarge, shrink, crop and do whatever she could think to do with her sister’s letter to make it more readable, she told her spouse about her challenge and asked if he thought he could help make the letter more readable.

He agreed and Vera logged onto her email so he could access the email with the letter attached. In doing so, Vera realized that her spouse could see all of her other emails along with their subject lines in her inbox.

“Should I have asked him not to read the other emails or subjects in my inbox while he was helping me out?” Vera asked. “Or is it safe to assume that everyone knows they shouldn’t do that?”

No, of course, it’s not safe to assume that people won’t snoop around if you give them the opportunity to and ask them not to. Then again, even if you ask them only to look at that one email, it’s still not a given they will limit themselves to doing that.

Would it be nice to believe that you can trust people to only do what you ask them to do without snooping around for more information when it’s right at their fingertips? Yes, but that wasn’t Vera’s question.

If Vera didn’t trust that her spouse would limit himself, then she had options. She could have asked her sister to email a clearer copy of the letter. Or she could have asked her to read her the letter over the phone or share a copy over Zoom or a similar platform.

This doesn’t mean that Vera’s spouse was a snoop. Whether he was depends a lot on the trust the two of them have in one another to do the right thing. If Vera regularly had let her spouse read her email, then he might have no reason to believe he shouldn’t this time. If Vera was concerned that he focus only on her sister’s email, then the right thing would have been to ask him to do so. And once he agreed to try to help, the right thing was for her spouse to honor that request, which, according to Vera, he did.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How far does a reader need to go when helping a neighbor?

How far do you need to go when lending a hand to a neighbor?

A reader we’re calling Monty who lives in New England wrote that he regularly likes to help out his elderly neighbors. Sometimes the help involves shoveling their sidewalks and steps after a snowstorm. Occasionally, he will help carry bags of groceries when he sees a neighbor unloading the car. Monty wrote that he likes to help out someone who needs the help and he also does it because he would like to think his neighbors would do the same for him.

Even when the help has gotten a bit more involved and included use of tools to put together a piece of furniture or to saw up a fallen tree branch after a storm, Monty has stepped in.

But Monty wrote that while he enjoys helping out, he doesn’t like to linger and “chit chat” after the work is done. And this is where Monty’s question about the right thing to do comes into play.

“One of my neighbors always insists that I sit and talk once the chore is done,” wrote Monty. “He’s a bit older and can’t do some of the things he used to do himself, so he gives me a call and I go over to help. I’m glad to help him out.”

Monty indicated that as the work is being done, he and the neighbor engage in long discussions about everything from the neighborhood and sports to politics and personal finances.

But whenever Monty tries to pack up and go home after the work is done, this neighbor insists he stay and talk for a while more. Occasionally, when Monty says he has to go home, the neighbor will respond with something like: “So now you’re too good to sit and talk?”

“I don’t want to insult him and I don’t want to feel bad about leaving,” wrote Monty. He just doesn’t enjoying sitting around chatting when he could be doing other stuff. “Is it wrong for me to tell him that I’m glad to help, but I don’t want to hang out and talk after the work is done?”

There could be all sorts of reasons Monty’s neighbor wants to continue talking. He may be a genuinely gregarious person. He may also be lonely and crave company. But Monty has no obligation to stick around and talk if he doesn’t want to. That he regularly responds to requests for help, seems to enjoy helping out, and talks with his neighbor while the work is being done is a good thing and suggests Monty is a good neighbor.

The right thing for Monty to do is to thank his neighbor for the invitation to sit and chat, but to decline the offer if he really would prefer not to. Monty should feel no guilt or remorse about doing this. And the right thing for Monty’s neighbor is to refrain from the comments that suggest Monty is doing something wrong by not wanting to sit around and talk. That Monty took the time to help should be more than enough to suggest to his neighbor that he cares about him enough to want to help.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should you do business with someone you loathe?

Should you do business with someone you loathe?

A reader we’re calling Thérèse emailed me recently to tell me that her husband discovered that his favorite V-neck pullover dark blue cashmere sweater had a small hole in it near the left-hand shoulder. Thérèse pointed out that she had purchased the sweater as a gift for her husband.

After doing some research online for local places that could repair the sweater, she found general agreement that the best place was a small yarn shop not far from where she lived.

Here’s where things got a bit gnarled up for Thérèse. The shop’s owner is a woman involved in local politics. “My husband isn’t crazy about her or her views on local issues,” wrote Thérèse. “But he really doesn’t like the owner’s husband who is a builder who recently had his crews operating their jackhammers from early in the morning until late afternoon as they prepared to build a house in a lot in Thérèse’s neighborhood.

“I really like that sweater,” wrote Thérèse. “What should I do?”

Thérèse faces a not uncommon conundrum. She really wants something, but one of the best sources for that something is a place owned by someone with whom she would prefer not to do business. Consumers regularly face such decisions. A fast food restaurant may be owned by someone whose views run counter to your own, but it has tasty sandwich offerings. A charity collecting donations during the holidays uses those donations to help people in need, but it doesn’t condone some lifestyle choices. The founder of a large consumer goods company was widely reported to be miserable to his family. Any of these and similar circumstances is certainly enough to make doing business with them unattractive.

The choice is simple when we have options. We learn to enjoy sandwiches elsewhere or find other charities doing good works, or purchase similar products from companies whose founders are notoriously kind rather than cruel.

If Thérèse and her husband truly find the owner of the yarn shop someone they’d rather not do business with, the right thing is to find another option to repair the beloved sweater.

While reviews may have listed the yarn shop as the best, it wasn’t the only outlet offering repairs. Thérèse mentioned seeing that the local dry cleaner she’s enjoyed doing business with has a tailor on premises. That’s an alternative even if the tailor hasn’t risen to the top of the review site.

Or Thérèse can share any number of how-to mend a broken sweater videos on YouTube with her husband, give him a needle and some matching yarn and tell him to have at it. If she wants, Thérèse can help her husband mend his broken sweater.

There is little upside to being reminded that you compromised your values and did business with someone you’d prefer not to support every time you wear your cherished blue sweater.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should she give business another chance?

Should you do business again with a business that disappointed you?

A reader we’re calling Sylvia ordered a gift from a company online for her partner, who we’re calling Ian. According to Sylvia, she placed the order in plenty of time for it to arrive for a holiday gift based on the estimated arrival date given her by the company’s website.

As the holiday grew nearer and no package arrived, Sylvia grew concerned so she contacted the company. The response from the company was that the package had been delivered and that she should check with her local post office. Sylvia dutifully did as instructed and consulted both her postal carrier and her local post office, each of whom told her there was no record of a package having been delivered to her residence.

Sylvia again emailed the company – repeatedly after it did not respond to her initial follow-up email. She still has heard nothing from the company.

The bad news is that Ian never got the gift. The good news is that Sylvia’s credit card company investigated the report of unreceived goods and credited her account so Sylvia did not end up paying for something she didn’t receive.

“I should have done this before ordering, but I went online and Googled the company and found that others had similar issues with it,” wrote Sylvia, who originally found the item from an advertisement that popped up when she was searching for possible gifts. Others reported ordering and paying for items that never arrived and subsequent customer service silence. Had she known the company had a bit of a spotty reputation, Sylvia believes she would have moved on and ordered something else from somewhere else.

But a few days ago, Sylvia received an email from the same company offering her a coupon for a significant percentage off the price of any item plus free shipping.

“The thing is, I like a lot of the items the company offers,” Sylvia wrote, indicating she remains burned by her last experience. Still, she asks: “Would it be wrong to give the company another try?”

What? Huh? There is absolutely no reason for Sylvia to feel obligated to forgive the past behavior of the company. It would be more foolish than wrong to engage again with a company that didn’t deliver the goods ordered, didn’t offer a credit until the credit card company got involved and did nothing to make good on Sylvia’s initial purchase.

Had the company stepped up and tried to help Sylvia when her initial order didn’t arrive, it might be more tempting to give the company another try. But the company did nothing, zilch, nada, leaving Sylvia high and dry and searching for a last-minute gift replacement for her beloved Ian.

The right thing is for Sylvia to trust her experience and that reported by others and to find another source of gifts for Ian and others. To paraphrase Maya Angelou: If a company shows you who it is, believe it the first time.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Looking back at another year of doing the right thing

 
A year ago, at the end of 2022, after looking at the analytics for the website where The Right Thing column gets posted after it has run in publications, it was clear that readers were drawn most to columns that touched on neighborly activity, appropriate levels of criticism and paying college students for the work they do.

In 2023, the top six viewed columns focused on leaving jobs gracefully, maintaining privacy after death, showing gratitude in tough times and learning how to support children without doing their work for them.

The sixth-most-viewed column, “If I don’t like my boss, should I flee?” ran in mid-February. In it I wrote that ultimately, the right thing to do if you don’t like your boss is not to flee the premises in search of new opportunities – although that’s sometimes an option – but instead to ask yourself just how much whatever we don’t like about the boss affects whether you can do the work you’d like to do.

The fifth-most-viewed column, “Parents should support but not do a child’s homework for them,” ran in early April. I wrote then and believe now that it is totally appropriate for parents to help a child with schoolwork as vigorously and supportively as they can, but to stop short of doing the work for them.

My Feb. 12 column, “Gratitude after a terrible week,” was in response to some particularly challenging events that my family was facing and the observation that we often don’t know what challenges others are facing. I borrowed some words that Oliver Sacks wrote when he was facing death: “I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude.”

June 4’s column, “How much privacy are we owed in death?” concluded that it was ultimately up to the chosen recipient of a deceased family member’s letters to decide how much, if anything, to disclose to others about what was in those letters.

On July 9, I wrote in “Keep the pearls, lose the rest” about when it was time to let go of old documents expressing anger or disappointment. I resolved to try to embrace the advice of an old friend who pointed out that this is what shredders are for. “Try to dwell on the bright moments of the past,” he wrote and shred whatever irritates.

Finally, by far the most viewed Right Thing column of the year was June’s “Choosing to say goodbye with a book.” As I was packing up my office to shift to emeritus status and move into different digs, I offered any book from my shelves that a visiting student might want. On a practical level, it meant less stuff to move. But it also meant that former students could have another little piece of my heart in book form.

Thank you, as always, for continuing to email your questions, stories and reactions for The Right Thing column. May your year continue to be full of doing the right thing while surrounded by those in your life who choose to do the same.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

 

 

A compelling example of powerful storytelling

Twenty-three years ago, I wrote a column about how storytelling was an effective tool to communicate ideas.

''People just don't simply hear stories,'' Joseph L. Badaracco Jr., a business ethics professor at Harvard Business School, told me. ''It triggers things -- pictures, thoughts and associations -- in their minds.'' That makes the stories ''more powerful and engaging,'' he said.

The challenge for such storytelling was captured in the titles my editor gave the column: “Storytelling Only Works if Tales are True.” If in the effort to convey an idea, the storyteller clearly crosses the line and simply makes stuff up, the power of the story is lost on the audience.

“The real challenge for any storyteller in business,” I concluded, “is to know that for the message of the story to ring true, the facts of it must have integrity as well.”

I bring this up now because I recently came across two examples of not-for-profit organizations using storytelling as powerful ways to address the needs of two different groups of people: military veterans and hospitalized children.

SongwritingWith: Soldiers (https://songwritingwithsoldiers.org/) runs regular retreats for veterans at which, among other things, they work with seasoned songwriters to help them tell their own stories through a song. (Full disclosure: My favorite oldest grandchild is active military although he has no association with SW:S.) The veterans are not professional musicians, but work with those who are. Judging from some of the songs that can be found online, the results are quite something – not just for the quality of the songs, but mostly because veterans are given a way to articulate their experiences that otherwise might have gone untold. (There are other groups using music as a therapeutic tool with military veterans, some of which can be found here: https://www.operationwearehere.com/musictherapy.html.)

Writers Inc. (https://www.writersincorporated.org/) also uses storytelling as a therapeutic tool, but the participants in this program are hospitalized children. Working with seasoned writers and editors, hospitalized children are helped to tell their own stories. Some of these stories end up as published books. Others create illustrated cards or painting. Writers Inc. works to find the best outlet for each child to tell his, her or their story. The child retains all copyright to any book published. (Full disclosure: One of my favorite former graduate students is one of the writers working with hospitalized children through Writers Inc.)

There is no charge to the military veterans or hospitalized children who participate in either program, which is a pretty good story itself.

Writers Inc. and SW:S are not the only programs that aim to use the arts as a method of enabling hospitalized children or military veterans to share and manage their respective experiences. But these two are strong examples of how powerful storytelling can be.

During a season where charitable giving is often more top of mind, I share the story of these two not-for-profits that operate based on the kindness of those who see fit to help foot the bill for the cost of operating. Of course, the right thing is for each of us to decide what charitable efforts we choose to support. Nevertheless, both SW:S and Writers Inc. have a compelling story to tell.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

 

Time to share your acts of kindness

Once again, I’m asking you to share moments of kindness you’ve experienced. I’ll start by sharing a few recent incidents that occurred during a recent trip to go teach for a few days in Morocco.

There are no direct flights from Boston to Casablanca, so a change was required on the trip over at JFK Airport in New York. The flight from Boston was on schedule, but the connecting flight from JFK was delayed several hours.

After repeated delays, the airline offered food vouchers of a modest amount to passengers waiting for the flight that could be used at any of the restaurants or stands selling snacks in the airport. People collected their vouchers and some went off searching for food. There was one family with three small children in tow among the passengers. The children were well-behaved but clearly were growing restless. Without hesitation several passengers offered the family their vouchers so they could go sit for a meal before the flight.

Later, as my phone was nearly depleted of its charge, I found a charging station where many passengers, including me, lined up their devices to be plugged in. As I sat waiting, a young man walked up, plugged in his phone and sat next to me. We got to talking and I discovered that he had just graduated college in New Zealand and was flying home after a week with his father in New York City where neither of them had ever been. The morning of their departure, the father and son had a bit of a tiff and while the son went off to the airport, the father told him he’d meet him later.

The son was growing nervous because his departure time was getting closer and he saw no sign of his father. After his phone had charged, he showed me a couple of photos of him and his dad on their trip, and then he went off in search of him in the airport.

A few minutes later, I saw a man who looked like his father, approached him, and told him his son was looking for him. He looked befuddled at first and then went off in search of his son. Because the airport was crowded, they apparently kept passing each other. Eventually, I saw the son, asked him to wait where I was and then went off to find where I had just seen his father go. Finally, they were reunited.

Later in Rabat, after deciding to take the local bus into town, I hadn’t realized I would need to transfer midway. Being deposited in a small village and not speaking Arabic, I had no idea how to ask about getting on the right bus. A woman who must have seen me searching around for clues, came up to me, asked, “Rabat?” and then held up fingers to represent the number of the bus I needed to get on.

In each case, someone, including me, tried to do the right thing by showing kindness to someone else in need.

Now, it’s time for you to share some acts of kindness you’ve experienced. Tell me who and where you are and email your stories to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. I will try to share some of your stories in the weeks ahead.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

In spite of Machiavelli, I will choose love over fear every time

“They will eat you alive.”

Those words are advice I received when I started teaching at my last academic outpost. The speaker was commenting on how important it was not to show vulnerability when I taught or to give those in the room a sense of when, if ever, I thought I may have erred and needed to correct myself out loud in the process of teaching.

I mostly ignored the advice and find it pretty useful not to try to convince students that I know stuff when I don’t, regardless of how often that is. But the advice stuck with me.

What also stuck with me is the colleague who occasionally introduced me as one of the nicest people on campus, but in a way that seemed to suggest this wasn’t a good thing. In the southern United States, there’s an expression, “Bless his heart,” which sounds positive when it is the opposite.

That vulnerability and niceness are seen as a leadership weakness is nothing new. In the early 16th century, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote “The Prince,” a book that was intended to advise Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence, how to stay in power. In “The Prince,” Machiavelli wrote that “it is far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.”

His reasoning might strike some as sound. “Men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared,” wrote Machiavelli. “For love is secured by a bond of gratitude which men, wretched creatures that they are, break when it is to their advantage to do so; but fear is strengthened by a dread of punishment which is always effective.”

In other words, we have a better shot of getting people to fall in line if they fear the consequences of doing otherwise. When push comes to shove, they might break with us even if they love us since the consequences are less dire.

The term “Machiavellian” has come to have sinister overtones and to connote someone who is unscrupulous particularly when it comes to politics. The sense that you should choose fear over love as a leadership tactic when you can’t have both remains pervasive.

Fear can indeed be a great motivator. But I refuse to buy that it represents a better outcome in any type of relationship. If you want followers to help you lead or do whatever it is you want to accomplish, the chances of them speaking their mind when it might go counter to what you believe are lessened if they quiver in fear. If instead they respect (or love) you, then the chances are greater that they will offer ideas that might never have crossed your mind or run counter to what they know to be your typical way of doing things.

Leading by fear too often leads to bullying others into accepting that it’s your way or the highway. Leading with love and respect – and vulnerability – is more likely to lead to a shared vision or goal.

Competence is important, yes. Preparation is critical. But if given the choice between working for someone whom I fear vs. someone I love and respect, I will continue to believe the latter is the right thing to do. I will also continue to try to lead the same way whenever given the opportunity.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

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