Why Being "Too Nice" Impacts Your Leadership

The High Cost of Letting Personal Attachments Cloud Your Leadership 

Let's talk about a tough aspect of leadership:

Letting go of underperforming team members.

A senior executive who wasn’t executing the organization's strategic initiatives.

They had their own agenda.

They brought me in to coach this executive on opportunities.

I quickly saw that it wasn’t a skill issue but a will issue.

Unless that shifted, I couldn’t change it for them.

This employee remained on the team for months, drawing a significant salary but contributing little to the organization.

Why?

Because of personal attachment.

This is a common issue I see in leadership.

In large organizations, it shows up because they’ve created a culture where they’re “nice.”
 
In small organizations, it happens because leaders have bonds with employees.

They know the person recently lost someone, is going through a hard time, or the holidays are coming up.

So they lead with their heart instead of their head.

In leadership, we need both. 

Or, what happens is that leaders keep employees because they haven’t documented the issues or provided feedback along the way.

They don’t spend time doing that until it’s too late.

And remember, if you invest in developing them and nothing improves…

It may be time to make that hard decision, cut your losses and move on.