Ruinous Empathy

Kim Scott coached at Google, Apple, and Dropbox. She's seen every leadership failure mode. And she's certain about which one is most common.

'90% of us make 90% of our mistakes in that ruinous empathy bucket. It's by far and away the most common problem.'

Ruinous empathy is when you care so much about someone's feelings that you fail to tell them something they need to hear.

She tells the story of Bob - a well-liked employee doing terrible work. For ten months, Kim gave him soft feedback. 'Oh Bob, this is such a great start. Maybe you can make it just a little bit better.' When she finally had to fire him, he asked: 'Why didn't you tell me?'

We do this with our kids constantly. We see something that needs correcting. We soften it. We hint. We hope they figure it out. We're so worried about hurting their feelings that we fail to give them the information they actually need.

That's not kindness. That's ruinous empathy. Real kindness is the hard conversation.