When Being Good Stops Being Good for You

Being a good person sounds uncomplicated. Be kind. Help people. Give people another chance. Work hard. Be loyal. Try to understand somebody else’s point of view. Forgive mistakes and be there when people need you.

Most of us would consider those good qualities, and in leadership they can be particularly valuable. People remember the leader who supported them during a difficult period, gave them an opportunity when somebody else wouldn’t or treated them like a human being rather than simply an employee.

But almost every positive quality has a point at which it can become unhealthy.

Kindness without boundaries can become self-neglect. Loyalty can keep you attached to people and situations long after they have stopped being good for you. Empathy can turn into constantly excusing behaviour that shouldn’t be acceptable, while resilience can become an expectation that you simply keep absorbing more.

There comes a point when being good to everybody else stops being particularly good for you.

When kindness becomes an expectation

Kindness is wonderful when it is freely given. It feels very different when people begin to expect it.

Perhaps you’re the person who always helps when somebody is struggling, agrees to the extra flexibility, picks up the problem nobody else wants and gives people the benefit of the doubt. At first, those things are choices. Gradually, they can become part of what everybody expects from you.

The trouble with consistently going above and beyond is that eventually “above and beyond” can start to look like the minimum.

Something you once did as a favour becomes something people assume you will always do. Your availability becomes normal. Your generosity stops being noticed, and the first time you cannot provide it, somebody may even feel disappointed.

That can be difficult to recognise because nothing dramatic has happened. Nobody necessarily sat down and decided to take advantage of you. A pattern simply developed, and you participated in creating it.

Recognising that doesn’t require blaming anybody. It simply means deciding whether the pattern still works for you.

Empathy can make us excuse too much

Good leaders usually try to understand why people behave the way they do. If somebody’s performance changes, we want to know what is happening. If they make a mistake, we consider the circumstances. If somebody is going through a difficult period, we try to make allowances. That is compassionate leadership.

But understanding why somebody behaves badly doesn’t mean you have to accept the behaviour indefinitely.

You can understand that somebody is under enormous pressure and still tell them they cannot speak disrespectfully to other people. You can sympathise with an employee’s circumstances while recognising that a role still has requirements. You can understand why somebody repeatedly lets you down without continuing to put yourself in a position where you depend on them.

There is an important difference between explanation and excuse. Empathy allows us to understand the person. Boundaries help us decide what happens next.

Loyalty can keep us somewhere too long

Loyalty is another quality we rarely question because being loyal is generally considered a good thing.

We stay loyal to employees who have been with us from the beginning, business partners who helped us through difficult periods, clients who supported us when the company was smaller and friends who have known us for years. History matters. But history can also make decisions much harder than they need to be.

A person who was exactly right for your organisation five years ago may no longer be right for the role it needs today. A client who once represented an important part of your business may now consume disproportionate time and resources. A relationship that once supported you may have become something you maintain primarily because of everything you’ve already been through together.

Loyalty should matter, but it shouldn’t require ignoring the present because you are grateful for the past.

Sometimes the most difficult leadership decisions involve accepting that appreciating what somebody once contributed doesn’t automatically mean the arrangement should continue forever.

Being understanding can become avoiding confrontation

There are times when we tell ourselves we’re being patient when we’re actually avoiding a conversation we don’t want to have.

We give another chance. Then another. We wait for things to improve. We tell ourselves somebody has a lot going on and decide that now isn’t the right time.

Sometimes patience is absolutely appropriate. People aren’t machines, and good leadership requires flexibility. But difficult conversations rarely become easier simply because we postpone them.

In fact, avoiding them can sometimes be less kind. The employee who doesn’t know there is a serious concern cannot address it. The colleague whose behaviour is affecting everybody else may have no idea how significant the problem has become. Meanwhile, frustration quietly builds until the eventual conversation is far more difficult than it needed to be.

Being kind doesn’t mean avoiding honesty. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is tell somebody the truth early enough for them to do something with it.

Resilience can become a dangerous compliment

Leaders are frequently praised for being resilient.

You’ve handled difficult periods before, so people assume you’ll handle the next one. You survived the last crisis, managed the impossible deadline and somehow kept everything moving when the business was under enormous pressure.

Eventually, “You’re so resilient” can start sounding suspiciously like, “We know you’ll cope.” And perhaps you will. But being capable of carrying something doesn’t mean you should have to carry it indefinitely.

Resilience should help us recover from difficult periods, not convince us that living permanently under excessive pressure is somehow evidence of strength. There is nothing admirable about repeatedly reaching breaking point simply because you have become exceptionally good at putting yourself back together.

Sometimes resilience means enduring. Sometimes it means recognising that something has to change.

Generosity needs limits

Generosity in leadership takes many forms. It can mean money, but more often it is time, flexibility, knowledge, introductions, opportunities and attention.

Generous leaders can have an enormous impact on people’s lives. Someone may build an entire career because a leader gave them their first opportunity or believed in them before they believed in themselves. But generosity becomes problematic when it consistently comes at your own expense.

If you are permanently filling gaps, absorbing costs, solving other people’s problems or making exceptions because you feel guilty saying no, eventually generosity can turn into resentment.

That resentment is useful information. It doesn’t necessarily mean the other person is ungrateful or taking advantage. Sometimes it means you have been giving more than you genuinely wanted to give and haven’t been honest about your own limits.

Healthy generosity includes the ability to stop.

Forgiveness doesn’t require repeated access

Forgiveness is another idea that can become confused with goodness.

We are encouraged to forgive people, let go of resentment and move forward. There can be enormous value in doing that, particularly when holding onto anger is affecting our own wellbeing. But forgiving somebody doesn’t necessarily mean restoring the relationship to exactly what it was before.

You can forgive somebody and still decide you don’t trust them with the same responsibility. You can accept an apology without pretending the behaviour didn’t happen. You can stop being angry with somebody while recognising that you don’t want them occupying the same place in your life.

Forgiveness is about what you choose to carry forward. Access is a separate decision.

Being needed can become part of your identity

There is another reason good people sometimes give too much: being needed can feel good.

When people come to you for advice, support and solutions, it reinforces the idea that you matter. Leaders can become particularly vulnerable to this because being the person with the answers is often built into the role.

The difficulty comes when we become so accustomed to being needed that we unconsciously make ourselves indispensable.

We don’t delegate because it is quicker to do something ourselves. We step into every problem because we know how to fix it. We allow people to depend on us because, somewhere underneath everything else, that dependence feels reassuring. Then we become overwhelmed by the very situation we’ve helped create.

Strong leadership isn’t about becoming unnecessary, but it should involve building people who can function without your constant intervention. If everything collapses the moment you step away, that isn’t necessarily evidence of how valuable you are. It may be evidence that too much has become dependent on you.

You don’t have to become harder

The answer to giving too much isn’t to stop being generous, empathetic or kind. Leadership doesn’t improve when we become cynical.

You don’t need to stop giving people second chances because somebody once abused one. You don’t need to stop helping people because occasionally your generosity hasn’t been appreciated. You certainly don’t need to become suspicious of everybody who asks you for something.

The goal is not to become less good. It is to become more discerning about where your goodness goes. Help because you genuinely want to help, not because you’re frightened of disappointing somebody. Give another chance when you believe it is appropriate, not because you cannot bring yourself to have a difficult conversation. Stay loyal because the relationship still has value, not because history makes you feel trapped.

Kindness works best when it includes you too.

Being good shouldn’t require abandoning yourself

There will always be moments when leadership requires sacrifice. There will be employees who genuinely need extra support, clients worth making an exception for and periods when the business needs more from you than you would ideally like to give. That’s part of leading people.

The important thing is noticing when the exception has become the pattern. If being understanding means accepting behaviour that repeatedly hurts you, something needs to change. If being loyal means remaining in situations that no longer work, something needs to change. If being generous leaves you permanently depleted or being resilient means nobody ever asks whether you’re actually okay, something needs to change.

You can remain kind while becoming more selective about what you accept. You can remain generous while having limits, loyal while recognising when something has run its course and empathetic without taking responsibility for everybody else’s life. Being a good person is something worth protecting. Just make sure that in trying to be good to everybody else, you haven’t quietly stopped being good to yourself.

Keep looking after you

Wellbeing looks different for everyone, and sometimes the most useful thing is simply finding the right information at the right time. Explore more from Daily Round with our dedicated Women’s Health, Men’s Wellbeing and Wellbeing for Leaders sections, or head to the Leaders Library for our latest book recommendations, ideas and inspiration for life in and outside work.