Nice Guy Syndrome: The Plight of the Corporate Martyr

Most of us know them. They are the well-liked co-workers who continuously put the job and their co-workers in front of their own needs. They fall on their swords to help others out, regardless of whether they will survive the 'battle' or sustain 'injury'. They do it in the name of friendship and loyalty to their companies. At first glance, they could be lauded as the "corporate hero"; however, all too often they end up as the "corporate martyr". Why? Because, in this guy's opinion, they are overly nice.

Real Case In Point - Eric was a brilliant technical architect who was participating on a proposal team for a huge deal. Prior to "The Big Presentation", he came up with a brilliant idea. He would print out a giant diagram of the system design, which could then be proudly displayed during the presentation and left as a prominent artifact for the prospect. To do so, Eric ran down to the local Kinko's to print out the drawing on their large format printer. Upon arriving, he found that the printer was broken. They recommended that he could drive 10 miles to the next Kinko's to use their functioning printer. Not Eric. As a self-admitted overly nice guy, he ended up working through the night at Kinko's to help them fix their printer. While he succeeded in repairing the printer, he was completely spent for the presentation the following morning and for several days thereafter. Corporate Martyr; yes or no?

Actions like Eric's are not uncommon in the business world, as workers aim to please their managers, co-workers, customers, suppliers and peers. However, when these efforts become so self-sacrificing, a real cost emerges as the overly nice guys kill themselves in the pursuit of making others happy. In Eric's case, it would have been more prudent of him to go to another Kinko's, print out the drawing, get a good night's sleep, and then participate in the presentation in a meaningful (and lucid) way. If he still felt it appropriate to lend a hand to Kinko's, he could do so after the presentation or on his own time.

Overly nice guys don't establish reasonable boundaries in this respect and it ends up hurting them as well as their organizations. In this regard, business managers should be on the watch for acts of corporate martyrdom. If overly nice guys demonstrate such over-the-top behavior, the boss can set guidelines to help protect against too much self-sacrifice. To aid in this effort, steps can be taken such as defining thresholds, which may be caused by corporate martyrdom. For example, in Eric's case, the team leader might define very specific boundaries regarding how intense the team members get when trying to "wow" clients. In professions that work in billable hours (like law), companies can impose limits to prevent workers from overextending themselves and burning out. Every company and its managers need to identify what types of boundaries need to be defined to help out the overly nice guys within their organization.

Overly nice guys represent a substantial percentage of the work force. In fact, 61% of the people surveyed for our book, "Nice Guys Can Get The Corner Office", indicated they are too nice at work. By implementing some important adjustments, you can help overly nice guys become effectively nice and convert from corporate martyrs to corporate heroes!

Comments

[research]

As an engineering manager, many of my best engineers are terrible at company politics. They don't know how to fight for promotions and raises, they don't understand the need to show off your good stuff. They just quietly get the job done. I have had to fight for the pay raises. I have had managers fight for my side when I was an engineer as well.

It's probably unreasonable to expect talented employees to also be political animals. Very few of the best are. They spend their time on their craft, not on self aggrandizement.

[Russ Edelman - Huffpost Blogger]

I would agree in that talented employees, in fact all employees, should avoid the pursuit of becoming a political animal. Rather, people should be able to find a balance which allows them to stay true to their talents and at the same time, represent their interests without being completely selfless. Teaching your team to remain concerned about themselves in addition to the quality of their work will only help them out in the short run and the long run. In short, I'd refer to this behavior as "effectively nice".

Thanks for responding!
Russ

[Idytme]

It bugs me that "nice guy" is interchanged readily with "doormat".
Nice guys don't finish last, doormats do, and for a doormat to blame it one being a "nice guy" is just to extend victimology. For a shark to say "nice guys finish last" is just an ego defense.
I would be ecstatic if the NGFL lexicon was removed from our cultural meme.
I love "nice guys". They run good companies, they are leaders, people look up to them and they also stand up for themselves and many times other good people.

[Tim Berry - Huffpost Blogger]

The corporate martyr title caught me immediately -- the nice guy book sounds intriguing -- but your example of Eric is too far out for me to relate, because he was helping strangers, with no points to gain, and so very far above and beyond normal.
I was expecting you to apply the "corporate martyr" tag to the ones who do favors for people like putting deposits into a corporate politics bank.
I worked as a consultant to a manager who was known throughout his company as a nice guy who would always go out of his way to help out a co-worker. I think he was just a genuinely nice guy, but as I watched over several years I saw that he was also a master of corporate politics, whose accumulated asset of favors done for co-workers through the years made him very effective and very powerful. One time in particular, when he was sure he was going to be fired as a scapegoat for a project failure, his asset bank of favors owed saved him. He ended up horizontally promoted, instead of fired.
The end result was something like the power of Don Corleone in the Godfather, or what I've been told was the power of LBJ in the late 1950s Senate. Hardly martyrdom, although it might have seemed like that when it showed up one favor at a time.

[DickTater]

Ooooh, I want to be a corporate hero!

[JBS]

Naaaah! Already been there, done that.

I just want to be one of the idle rich now.