Have you ever met a "nice guy" who was successful in business?

tea and coffee

Have you ever met someone who was very successful/top of their game and a nice person to boot?
All the "top" people I can think of appear to have been Alpha types or hard work (eg Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael O Leary etc) . Fergal Quinn appears to be about the only person I can think of who seems to have been a decent sod.

drake70

Richard Branson seems nice, but I've never met him.

Tabnabs

I have met a number of very nice and genuine people who are ultra high net worth individuals. Business is business however and that's their most important focus when they have their "work hat" on.

witchgirl26

I would agree with Tabnabs - I work with a lot of nice guys who would be quite high up in their respective fields but I wouldn't necessarily like to go into a tough meeting with them as they could incredibly tough to deal with. It doesn't mean their not nice or genuine, just that they have a work mode.

I would be quite a nice person (from what people say to my face anyway!) but there's times in work where I do have to be a hardnut to get something done. It's just business.

Wanderer2010

Ive never met a nice guy in work who wasn't treated badly in some way. Strictly speaking just work only, its a hard lesson I have learned over the years that nice guys really, absolutely do end up last. By last I mean, always expected to do more hours, take on the menial tasks, carry others in the group and generally stop everything you are doing to help others who wouldn't look twice at you otherwise.
Its sad but you have to be as assertive as you possibly can be, and yes, even a bit of an a%%hole, to get any respect in work. If I'm asked to stay late, ill say "I can do an extra 30 mins any good to you?" if its short notice. I only do overtime on rare times. I wont help anyone unless I'm asked to and I walk out at finishing time. Yes, it may be frowned upon and make me unpopular with some workers and management but who cares? You only live once, don't spend it miserable in work.

One_Of_Shanks

Well I suppose its all relative to your definition of successful. Does a fella running his own company worth 4 or 5 mill count?
If so, then yes I have met and deal with one such fella all the time as my tiny business is a supplier to his.
Lovely chap and always so nice and honest that I sometimes wondered how he did so well for himself, which in turn implies that I think the same way as you OP.
On the other hand if you're aiming more for the elite businessmen of the nation, then no I have never met any.

This might sound like a bizarre comment but something I always wanted to say and maybe this is kind of the thread for it..... But you know when you're driving on the motor-way and you're over-taking and someone comes up behind you doing 180 and flashing the lights and tail-gating etc, it's 99% certain to be a fella in a suit driving a brand new car/jeep worth about 50-60% per cent of the average person's house.
So I often wondered do these people get where they are by just generally being aggressive or do they become cocky/aggressive as a result of their success?
Similar point really and not to drag your thread off topic, yeah it seems to me that ruthless people seem to do better in business.
Or maybe, people just become ruthless after tasting success in the first place.

dudara

I meet lots of very successful people who are all very nice, decent, honest people. Being focused at work, setting high standards and having a high drive can go hand in hand with being "nice".

I think people here occasionally confuse "nice" with being a bit of a "soft touch".

OleRodrigo

Nice is a often a euphemism for a tendency to avoid conflict - a quality which wont serve you well in mid to senior level roles.

Achasanai

Plenty.

In addition to the other person who said you might be confusing nice with a soft touch, I think that sometimes people see 'alpha' as just 100% of somebody's personality. People can have elements of it and display it only at certain times.

brickland

drake70 wrote: »

Richard Branson seems nice, but I've never met him.

The problem is a lot of business men/women have a public persona and a private persona. Some have the same public/private persona which makes them loathsome (Philip Greene) and some have a caricature public persona like Michael O'Leary. These people rarely get to the top without breaking their balls and a lot of other peoples balls along the way. As they say in the business world, kindness is a weakness.

Richard Branson has a very good public image but he can be an absolute despot to work for, ask anyone that has worked for Virgin Money especially.

JP McManus is genuinely one of the nicest people I've met in a non work related environment. I have never had and probably never will have to deal with him in his business matters (trading, investments etc, not horse racing) but I know through a friend that he expects and demands the best.

People that are generally ruthless in business will usually make it back even after a failure. It is just the way they are, some people are born that way. Bernard McNamara would be an example (I consider him a builder first,developer second not like most of the schmucks from the CT era who bought a sold stuff and never owned a pair of work boots in their life), he started with a very small outfit and made it huge by doing his own jobs. He treated a lot of people harshly along the way but he made it as they say. Then he lost it all but is now up and going again, he is probably 70 years old and I often see him on the late or early flight from Dublin to Heathrow and always doing something on a laptop or a phone. He could give up but its just the character he is.

I own a small business, I break my balls and just sometimes I have to break balls to make sure what needs to happen happens. That is why it is called business I guess.

tl:dr nice guys don't make it in big business

FireFoxBoy

Mark Zukerberg is not 'Alpha' type. He is the opposite. The best entrepreneurs invest in people, they don't stab them in the back.