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Coaching for Leaders

767: Being Nice May Not Be Kind, with Graham Allcott

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Management, Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Graham Allcott: KIND

Graham Allcott is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and the founder of Think Productive, a leading provider of training and consultancy. He is the author of multiple books, including the bestseller How to Be a Productivity Ninja and his latest book, KIND: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

“Nice” means telling people what they want to hear. “Kind” means telling them what they need to hear. The best leaders are kind. In this conversation, Graham and I explore how we can do a better job of following through.

Key Points

  • “Nice” means telling people what they want to hear, whereas “kind” means telling them what they need to hear.
  • Kindness is both concern for others and concern for self. Just like with salted caramel, it’s best with the right balance.
  • Leaders often do better articulating vision and values than they do with getting clear on expectations of value each person should provide.
  • Being clear is an act of kindness in itself because it drives psychological safety.
  • Use a personal mantra as a concise and powerful way to consistently remind people about what’s most important.
  • Invite others to “give the last 20%” in feedback to uncover areas where clarity would help.

Resources Mentioned

Interview Notes

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Nice means telling people what they want to hear. Kind means telling them what they need to hear. The best leaders are kind. In this episode, how we can do a better job of following through. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 767.

0:17.2

Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

0:25.2

Greetings to you from Orange County, California.

0:28.6

This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahofiak.

0:33.4

Leaders are born, they're made.

0:35.6

And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations.

0:41.6

So many folks who are part of our listening community have the value of kindness on their hearts

0:48.8

and also in wanting to bring kindness into the workplace in such genuine and effective ways. And today, a conversation

0:57.2

on how we can do that better. And also, some of the things that sometimes we think are kind,

1:05.6

but aren't necessarily as kind as we would like them to be. And I am so glad to welcome today, Graham Alcott. He is

1:14.2

a author, speaker, entrepreneur, and the founder of Think Productive, a leading provider of

1:19.8

training and consultancy. He is the author of multiple books, including the bestseller,

1:24.3

How to Be a Productivity Ninja, and his latest book, Kind, The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work.

1:30.9

Graham, so glad to have you here.

1:33.0

Lovely to be here. Thank you, Dave.

1:34.8

Graham, I grew up in the Midwest of the United States, a place that is known for being very nice.

1:42.0

People are nice to each other in everyday interactions, neighbors,

1:46.7

formal, informal, you name it. And as a result of that and many other factors, I think for a long

1:53.6

time in my life, I saw the words nice and kind as very much synonyms. And I think that's why a couple of lines in your book

2:04.6

landed with me so profoundly. You write, kindness gets a bad press because sometimes it's

2:12.2

confused with just being nice. Kind and nice are not the same. In fact, there's a world of difference between nice

2:19.2

and kind. I would go as far to say that they're closer to being opposites than they are to being

...

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