Steve LowiszFounder of Guide, Don’t Drive™ Leadership | Keynote Speaker |

When Being Too Nice Destroys Your Team’s Standards | Leadership Lesson on Accountability

3 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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A short leadership lesson (Steve Lowisz) arguing that true kindness in management requires first being clear about performance standards (the bar). If someone repeatedly chooses not to meet the agreed bar, the kinder action may be to help them find success elsewhere; otherwise, being "too nice" signals that lower performance is acceptable and erodes the team’s standards.

Sometimes the kind thing to do only after you have been clear about the bar. If somebody chooses, and there are people that will choose not to do anything to hit the bar, kindness, and I think HR would agree with me, is letting them be successful somewhere else. Why? What happens if you don't? If you're not kind enough to let them be successful somewhere else, you just being nice and what's the fallout of being too nice? You just set the example for everybody else on that team to drop their bar.