There was an article in major New York or Boston newspaper the other day entitled “Can Kind, Friendly bosses get ahead?”

Here is what I bet many people “read” when they saw that headline: “Is it possible you can survive in this world if you are a namby-pamby, pushover, cream puff?”

The United States, since the 1970s, has been overdosing on “toughness.”

• Presidential candidates are “tough” on crime;

• Police officers can tell you there is “zero tolerance” on rolling a stop sign late at night;

• Customer service desk staffers can inform even little old ladies they are “cracking down” on people trying to return unopened heating pads without a receipt;

• Some bosses pride themselves on “no-nonsense” office policies on dress, or sick time, or work hours?

• Fox News anchors tout “get-tough” policies on immigration.

What has happened in Norman Rockwell’s America?

I think about former Indiana college basketball coach Bobby Knight (whom I generally respected), and former President Richard Nixon.

Knight led a legion of 20-something male basketball coaches in the 1970s-’80s-’90s into believing that the way to get things done, lead the troops, and be respected was to scream, berate players and referees, and (occasionally) throw a chair onto the court.

Nixon was the first to have televised infomercial-type shows, or ads, with a “studio audience” asking questions. One posed a question on street crime. Candidate Nixon’s answer was: “I say ‘string him up!’” The audience howled in approval. A star was born. A popular philosophy was hatched.

One of my favorite Christmas movies the past 20 years is “Joyeux Noel.” It is about a 1914 truce among German, French and British troops in the battlefield on Dec. 24 in World War I. A wonderful theme for many reasons.

Big rough tough military leaders, each speaking in their dialect, having just spent weeks and months ordering young men into battle – to “kill and be killed,” as they say – suddenly chatting with their sworn enemies and saying, “It is Christmas Eve. I don’t think anyone would begrudge us ceasing hostilities for a few hours to observe the birth of the baby Jesus.” They stopped active combat that night. A German opera singer led them in “Silent Night.” They toasted with contraband champagne. Eyes welled up with tears.

Were the leaders whimps? Cowards? “Soft?” “Not men?”

Or were they kind, compassionate human beings who knew the time to rigidly adhere to the rules of battle and the time to step back and recognize the need for gentle, traditional, childhood-based emotion in a manner that would not affect the course of current events?

I’d vote for (b).

I am a liberal Democrat. I once agreed with a Republican friend of mine who berated me on the Town Council by saying, “I bet you are in favor of growing flowers down the middle of Route 1!” My mother loved flowers, I said. Not a bad idea.

Then I began 30 years as a lawyer and baseball coach/general manager for Libby-Mitchell Post 76 in Scarborough. I went the other way.

The truth is, I now think, somewhere in the middle.

That article in the big-city paper on acceptable supervisor attitudes ended up concluding yes. “One reason is trust. Employees feel greater trust with someone who is kind,” it said. Amen.

Isn’t that also true with political leaders, military personel, Turnpike toll takers, Walmart front-desk folks, and school bus drivers?

Get your “kind” on again, kids.

Dan Warren is a Scarborough trial lawyer. He can be reached by private Facebook message at Jones & Warren Attorneys at Law, or by email at jonesandwarren@gmail.com.