In business the nice guys win

CEOs who are considered to be nice guys deliver better results for shareholders, says a new book. Leaders who display four cardinal virtues – integrity, compassion, the ability to forgive and forget, and accountability – consistently deliver return on assets up to five times larger than the returns produced by their counterparts with a ‘self-focused’ leadership style, who never or rarely exhibit those four traits.

The soon-to-be published book ‘Return on Character’ is based on a seven-year project by author Fred Kiel, founding partner of executive development firm KRW International. He and his research team studied 84 CEOs and their employees.

The soon-to-be published book 'Return on Character' is based on a seven-year project by author Fred Kiel, founding partner of executive development firm KRW International. He and his research team studied 84 CEOs and their employees. Based on detailed interviews with employees, he and his team found, for instance, that engagement and enthusiasm are 26 per cent higher among people who work for companies where they feel valued, respected, and fairly paid than among their less well-treated peers elsewhere. They work harder, too. ’Doing well’ and ‘doing good’ are most often two sides of the same coin: the creation of positive value', says Kiel.

Read more at Fortune

Barbara Bierach