Nice.

As a creative person, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with that word. Who would want their meticulously crafted, strategically mind-blowing, I-spent-all-weekend-on-this work to be described simply as “nice”? And likewise, how many of us were formally trained to think of being nice as a top career priority, and something we’d be regularly measured against and held accountable for as managers?

In an industry often characterised by hard-edged and combative sounding language – think “kick-ass creative”, “disruptive”, “competitive pitch”, “Agency X poaches MD from Agency Y” – niceness begins to sound… well, a bit boring. Add to that the fact that kindness is so often seen as a soft skill when in reality it’s a discipline that can be one of the hardest for busy Creatives to refine and practise. We’ve all sent an email or Teams message too quickly or had to keep rescheduling that overdue catch-up with a colleague.

As Creative Directors, we are also constantly judging people’s work. And we need to ensure that work is always the best it can be. But the words we use and the way we act in review meetings, interviews and book crits has a huge impact on those who have painstakingly produced it. They can crush spirits or lift them. Inspire the next round or make it terrifying. Build self-belief or chip away at it.

Kindness is a choice.

Like most of us, I’ve known a broad spectrum of creative leaders, many of whom have fortunately made that active choice to be kind. And as I’ve progressed through my career, these are the people I’ve gravitated towards and tried to emulate. It’s one of the reasons I ended up in my current role. Far from the horror stories you used to hear more often about unrealistic expectations, expletive-filled rants and other inappropriate behaviour, these are the leaders who now inspire others through their empathetic actions as well as their words.

These Nice Leaders^TM, already starting to receive greater acclaim in our industry and beyond thanks in part to a long-overdue focus on employee wellbeing and mental health, have become even more business-critical during the pandemic.

As the world turned upside down and we experienced new (and not always ideal) ways of working, it was harder for managers to spot signs of burnout in team members, or see who was having a good day or a terrible one. Suddenly, regular one-to-ones and morale-boosting team meetings weren’t nice-to-haves but must-haves for everyone’s benefit. More and more studies are showing that happy, respected employees make better work. Part of that is down to the level of psychological safety we feel in interactions with leaders. In 2022, it has to be ok to share ideas and not be ridiculed, undermined or even ignored. Not only because that’s the decent, human way to treat people. But because we’ll lose some incredible talent to other creative industries if we don’t each keep checking our behaviours.

I also strongly believe that being nice leads to higher quality creative work. Empathetic insights result in award-winning ideas. Making space for people in your team to be their authentic selves inspires them to innovate. And after all, what are we doing if not creating things that make someone’s day a bit nicer? A poster that makes them laugh on their daily commute. A film they can talk about with a friend. A smoother experience as they buy something online. Or an app that gives them a faster route home.  

So, isn’t it time we reclaimed the word nice and each found more ways to put it into action every day? For me, that’s about sending those extra words of praise to someone, stopping to chat to a new colleague, or even being a bit kinder to myself sometimes. Because being a good person and making good work go hand in hand. And because this model of creative leadership will inspire the next generation of talent to become even Nicer Leaders in the future.

And wouldn’t that be nice.