Beware of Nice Guys

“Nice” should never be a compliment for people in positions of power

Have you ever entered a house that is extremely clean?—?but a little too clean? The floor is perfectly polished. The tablecloth matches the drapes, which matches the napkins, which matches the hand towels in the sparkly spotless bathroom.

The owners of the home are a beautiful young couple with perfect teeth. They do charity work to rescue blind children in Africa. And they cannot help but smile from ear to ear as they lecture to you about their ambitions to end world hunger.

As you listen to them boast about their love for God, you cannot help but wonder?—?Do these people have skeletons in their closet? Is there a hostage tied up in a dungeon somewhere in the back of the house?

What made Joko Widodo gain widespread prominence in the 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial race was largely his nice and spotless demeanor. His rise to power was a somewhat messianic story.

He was a man of the people?—?a kind, peaceful populist. He walked through the slums and street markets and shook hands with the struggling and the unfortunate. He made it clear that he was on the side of the humble tradesmen and the proletariats. He himself came from very humble beginnings, but somehow managed to garner an army of loyal followers through his down-to-earth plebian persona. He was even a carpenter (how much more similar to Jesus could you be?)

But after two terms of service in the presidential palace, the supposedly messianic man of the people has become somewhat unrecognizable. They say power corrupts. And after two terms of absolute power, it has corrupted the president absolutely. The level of back-room political machinations the president is currently engaging in is antithetical to the philosophies that brought him to power in the first place.

Today his family members are scattered all over the political landscape. Legislations have been tweaked and tinkered here and there to accommodate his political agendas. The separation between the executive, legislative, and judicative branch of government is becoming ever blurrier as he exerts influence in all three.

How Did This?Happen?

Some have pointed to the infancy of the Indonesian political system that still needs time to mature itself. Others have pointed to the permeation of the Javanese culture in politics that prioritizes politeness and solidarity over merit and competition.

But let’s not overthink this. Leave the anthropological analysis to the academics. We can skip these complicated theories and focus on the man himself. The Achillies’ heel of Joko Widodo is precisely his nice demeanor. He is just too nice of a person to be given such great power. What made the country fall in love with him a decade ago is precisely what makes him corruptible today. Let me explain.

Being a “nice guy” is wonderful for political campaigning, but it is dreadfully insufficient for political leadership. What nice guys bring to the table is kindness and relatability. These qualities are great if you are looking for someone to gossip with over warm chamomile and pink macaroons. But such qualities are not robust enough to carry you through the dirty culture ingrained in Indonesian politics without being stained yourself. Such niceness and pleasantries easily turn into naivete, gullibility, and ultimately corruptibility if it is tempted with power and privilege?—?which is exactly what has happened to the current president.

What We?Need

Psychologist Jordan Peterson considers niceness as a “low-order virtue”. A nice-to-have virtue at best. He proposes a more complex version of a well-developed human being?—?which is a person that has the capacity to be ruthless and aggressive, but has the emotional control to civilize that part of himself.

If niceness and positivity is the Yin, then ruthlessness and aggressiveness is the Yang. A combination of the two creates a balanced and powerful leader who is soft enough to foster peaceful cooperation, but ruthless enough to stave off temptations of power. What Joko Widodo has is a whole lot of Yin?—?and barely any Yang.

Look at Winston Churchill. Look at Lee Kuan Yew. Look at Martin Luther King Jr. It was not niceness and pleasantries that made them impactful leaders. They were intelligent, ruthless?—?but civilized?—?tough bastards. That was what made them incorruptible. That was what made them immovable within their integrity, even in the midst of great privilege and power. Ironically, when it comes to people in positions of power, it is the nice guys?—?the meek?—?that can cause the most harm.