He adopted a similar approach when leading unfancied Bradford City into the Premiership and now hopes it can help deliver promotion at the JJB Stadium.
Jewell said: "I might be hard on the players at times, but I think I'm fair with them too.
"I do distance myself from them, and although there are times when you can be close to them, they don't want that because I'm a pain in the backside!
"But if any of them were to knock on my door and ask me for a favour, I would try and help them.
"When you pick the team as a manager, only 11 of the players in your squad will think you have made the right choice.
"That doesn't bother me because you don't come into football management to be liked."
Jewell admits that his early days in management at Bradford taught him a great deal, and was experience he carried forward first to Sheffield Wednesday and now to Latics.
"At Bradford I became manager straight after being one of the lads there," he said.
"That was not easy because of the type of player I was, someone who always had an opinion.
"I couldn't go from being one of the lads one day to being aloof the next.
"When you go to a club where the players only know you as a manager, it is a lot easier.
"It got easier at Bradford when I started bringing in lads who didn't know me a player.
"I think it was a different state of affairs here at Wigan when I arrived at the start of last season.
"Although I had previously played for the club, it was a totally different place to what I left behind in 1988."
Article from the Wigan Evening Post.