When Mark Cuban was in his 30s, running the tech company that would eventually make him a billionaire, he was laser-focused on productivity and results.

These days, he regrets it. “I wish somebody would have told me to be nicer,” said Cuban, 64, when asked what advice he’d give his younger self. “Because I was always go, go, go Ready, fire, aim. Let’s go. Let’s go faster, faster.”

At first, Cuban’s hustle-forward outlook tanked the company’s morale and performance, he said: “Sometimes it took my partner Todd telling me, ‘Look, you’re scaring some people, [and] they’re typically going to [quit] and you can’t get mad.’”

The business may not have grown so much — and Cuban might not be a billionaire — if he hadn’t learned the “underrated” skill of being nice.

“I went through my own metamorphosis, if you will. Early on in my career,” he said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do business with me when I was in my 20s [and 30s].”

“So I had to change, and I did, and it really paid off,” he added.

Kindness is a valuable leadership trait. Workers have “four universal needs” when it comes to their bosses: trust, compassion, stability and hope.

Employees become more engaged in their work, leading to higher productivity, lower staff turnover and overall monetary gain.

“It not only affects employees themselves. It has a downstream impact on the business,” Duffy said.

“For a while, there was this idea that we are treating people well, and we are going to get beaten by a competitor that is more aggressive,” Zimmer said. “There was a misunderstanding about those values [not being] tied to building a great business, which they are.”

Thanks Ashton Linnell for sharing this wisdom