Leadership Is Not About Being Nice
Richard Martin
I equip leaders to achieve strategic alignment through nested hierarchical action, harnessing initiative for maximal effectiveness with minimal friction.
By Richard Martin, The Strategic Code
Leadership today is awash in soft-focus platitudes—calls for kindness, empathy, servant leadership, and emotional vulnerability dominate platforms like LinkedIn. While none of these traits are inherently wrong, they often miss the mark. Leadership is not about being nice. It is not about being liked. Leadership is about accomplishing the mission through people—and doing so consistently, under pressure, and in complex, evolving situations.
The Two Core Dimensions of Leadership
Effective leadership has always been defined by two fundamental orientations: task orientation and people orientation. This framework has been understood for nearly a century, going back to leadership studies of the 1930s and 40s. Yet somehow, in today’s culture of self-expression and feel-good leadership memes, this foundational truth is often forgotten or ignored.
Some leaders are naturally mission focused. They emphasize goals, plans, and execution. Others lean toward relationships, preferring to build harmony, cohesion, and emotional support within the team. Neither orientation is sufficient on its own.
True leadership requires a deliberate effort to stretch beyond one’s temperament. The task-oriented leader must cultivate the interpersonal skills necessary to build and sustain team morale. The relationship-oriented leader must develop the discipline to prioritize mission clarity, concrete objectives, and performance accountability. In short, leadership is not a personality trait; it is a functional role.
You Can’t Lead Without a Mission
At the core of leadership is purpose. A leader without a clearly defined mission is not leading; they’re socializing. To lead effectively, you must define the mission, communicate it clearly, and ensure it’s translated into actionable objectives. Whether you drive those tasks directly or empower others to take initiative, the responsibility remains yours.
Execution doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Leaders must align the team, assign responsibilities, set priorities, and hold people accountable. Leadership without clarity is chaos. But clarity alone isn’t enough.
You Can’t Lead Without People
You may have the best plan in the world, but if you can’t bring people with you, you’re going nowhere fast. People must be engaged, not just assigned. That requires more than charm; it requires connection. You must be able to explain why the mission matters, and why it matters to them. You must create alignment between individual motivations and collective goals.
This doesn’t mean coddling or pandering. It means recognizing that leadership is a fundamentally social process. People don’t follow abstract ideas. They follow people they trust, respect, and believe in. If you ignore the human element, you’re sabotaging your own mission.
Leadership as the Employment of People Toward Purpose
Let’s be clear: leadership is not therapy. It’s not about self-actualization. And it’s certainly not about being liked. Leadership is the art of employing people toward the accomplishment of a mission. That means using every tool at your disposal—communication, discipline, morale-building, decisiveness, example-setting—to achieve a defined outcome.
That outcome may be business success, military victory, policy change, or cultural transformation. Whatever it is, it won’t happen just because you were empathetic. It will happen because you made tough decisions, ensure your people were fully aligned, and got the job done.
Conclusion: Leadership Is Hard—and That’s Why It Matters
Real leadership is demanding. It requires stepping outside your comfort zone. It demands strength of will, strategic clarity, emotional intelligence, and moral authority, not as buzzwords, but as lived competencies. Leadership is not about who you are; it’s about what you do, and what you achieve through others.
So yes, empathy and kindness can help. But they are not the essence of leadership. The essence of leadership is mission and people, together, in disciplined pursuit of a purpose.
About Richard
Strategic advisor, theorist, and builder of interpretive systems. I write about sovereignty, power, the individual, and the architecture of human action.
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© 2025 Richard Martin
Business Coach & Mentor
1moThanks for sharing, Richard
Major (Retd) at Dept of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces
2moGood article. Takes me.all tne way back to discussions central in the Basic Logistics Officer Course I took way back in 1980. This was a time of "Crisis in Command" authored by Gabriel and Savage and the deep introspection in the US Army concerning their Vietnam operations. Within tbe civilian context, IMHO, the confusion is between leadership and management, many considering the two identical, which they surely are not. Effectively running the toy department in Walmart isn't exactly on tbe same level as taking out an enemy logement on a key physical piece of terrain. I was always reminded to be "fair, firm, friendly and especially focused".
Consultant - Space and Defence
2moEvery word you write is true. I would add however that Leadership is about getting the people to WANT to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. It is both a science and an art.
I equip leaders to achieve strategic alignment through nested hierarchical action, harnessing initiative for maximal effectiveness with minimal friction.
2moDamn people! They’re always in the way…
Equipping Leaders for Success
2moGood analysis, Richard. Mission AND People is a polarity and finding the optimal balance in any given situation is what makes leadership so challenging. As a mentor of mine was wont to say (tongue in cheek” “Leadership would be easy - if it weren’t for people!” 😉