She was crying, but quietly. Her hands stayed in her lap, clasped tightly, the way you do when you’re trying not to fall apart in front of someone who outranks you. It was after a difficult client meeting, one where she had presented good work, solid work – but the client had been harsh. Not cruel. Just clinical. No praise, only corrections. No eye contact, only notes.
She closed her laptop and said, “I’m sorry I let you down.”
I paused. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because the words that came were slower than usual. Gentler.
“You didn’t let me down,” I said. “You cared. And you tried. That’s not failure. That’s the work.”
She exhaled. Not relief, exactly. But the kind of exhale that tells you someone might be able to try again tomorrow.
Sometimes, what people need most isn’t a solution. It’s a softness they didn’t expect.
I used to think the point of leading was to be unshakable. Strong. Decisive. The one who walks in with answers, not feelings. I had spent years being the calm in the storm, the steady voice, the fixer. And in many rooms, that version of me got results.
But something changed after I became a parent. And again after I watched people I love grieve, grow, and fall apart. I started to notice the places where I had been armored when I could have been open. Where I had solved problems but missed people.
I realized I had been managing performance.
But I hadn’t always been holding people.
We don’t talk about this enough: tenderness is not a liability. In fact, it’s often the only thing that keeps us human – at home, at work, and in our communities.
I’ve seen brilliant teams break – not because of strategy, but because someone forgot they were made of people. The metrics were perfect. The pipeline was humming. But the culture? Brittle.
That brittleness is what happens when we remove softness from systems that are already cold.
There was a time my son came home from school, silent. I asked how his day was. He shrugged. Later, I found him in his room, sitting on the floor beside his backpack. I sat down too.
No lecture. No strategy. Just time.
Eventually, he said, “I didn’t make the team.”
I reached for his hand.
He didn’t need a plan. He needed presence. Just like that colleague did many years ago. Just like I have, in my own worst moments.
And in that moment, I added a realization – something I hadn’t put into words before:
The urge to fix often comes from our own discomfort. But the choice to stay soft comes from love.
It is the same in boardrooms and in our homes. In performance reviews and dinner tables. In every role we play – as leaders, parents, partners, and friends.
Softness does not mean being passive. It means intentional care. It means seeing the person beneath the behavior. Loving kindness maybe?
I know from my lived experience that soft doesn’t mean weak. It means awake. Attuned.
And in many of the best leaders I’ve worked with – the kind that change lives, not just org charts – there is always softness. Not as a performance. As a behavior.
They created time where there wasn’t any. Not just for what was urgent, but for what was quietly important. A moment of recognition. A pause. The question that comes after the meeting ends.
They remembered what others forget. Not just milestones and metrics, but moments. A birthday. A silence. A sigh between sentences.
And they listened differently. Not to fix. Not to win. But to understand. They held the room – with depth.
They noticed effort even when outcomes fell short. They named the trying, not just the triumph. Their standards were steady, but their delivery was always generous.
And that grace – the way they corrected, guided, and responded – was not an accessory to leadership. It was a foundation for the culture they enabled.
It’s what people remembered when they left.
It’s what they probably still carry with them – many years later.
I once had a manager tell me, “The only reason people stay is because of how you make them feel when they fail.”
At the time, I thought it was a clever line. Later it became a principle.
Because eventually, everyone will stumble. Everyone will miss a number, or break something, or feel like they’re not enough. And when they do, they will remember how you showed up.
Most will not remember your KPI dashboards. They will remember the moment they made a mistake—and whether you made them feel small, or made them feel human.
And that memory will shape how they show up for the next person.
That’s the ripple effect of kindness. It outlives the moment.
Softness is not practiced because it is easy. It is chosen because it is a lever for great relationships and outcomes. And that choice may appear radical in systems that reward detachment.
To choose tenderness is to say: We can do hard things, but we don’t have to do them in hard ways.
I once watched a senior leader take a team through a grueling restructure. She cried in the final town hall. Not performatively. Just quietly, as she thanked the people who had to leave. Some said it was unprofessional.
But months later, employees who stayed still talked about her with respect. Not because she had all the answers. But because she let herself feel.
That’s the thing: people don’t leave jobs. They leave emotional climates. They leave leaders who are absent in the moments that matter most.
We talk a lot about accountability. About performance. Outcomes. Goals.
But what about the moments that don’t fit on a dashboard?
To lead is to hold space for the full story. To remind people their value doesn’t disappear when the numbers dip.
To build a culture where people rise—not out of fear, but from a place of trust. Where they belong, even when they break.
The strength of staying soft is not in what it avoids. It’s in what it allows.
It allows people to be whole. It allows you to be real. It allows leadership to become love.
And it might just be the reason someone chooses to try again tomorrow.
The strongest leaders I know don’t make people afraid to fail. They make people feel safe enough to keep going.
Enjoy your loved ones and the rest of your Weekend.
And thank you for spending some of it with me.
Warm regards,
Adi