Asher's Blog

One of my team members once asked me an intriguing question: is it better to be a good person or a good leader?

The question made me pause because it appeared to require a choice between two things that should naturally belong together. Yet I understood why she asked it. In many workplaces, a “good person” is understood to be kind, dependable, trustworthy and considerate. A “good leader,” however, is expected to set direction, demand standards, make difficult decisions and achieve results. Since difficult decisions can disappoint people, leadership can sometimes appear to be in conflict with goodness.

So I began where serious conversations should begin: with definitions. What does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to be a good leader? Are we describing two different kinds of people, or are we distinguishing character from responsibility?

My conclusion is that being a good person is necessary for good leadership, but it is not sufficient. A good person may be trustworthy and dependable without being able to establish priorities, confront poor performance, allocate resources, create alignment or deliver an important result. A leader must possess moral character, but leadership adds an obligation to move people and an organization towards a worthwhile outcome.

At the same time, a person who produces results through fear, manipulation, dishonesty or the destruction of others may be effective in a narrow sense, but I would hesitate to call that person a good leader. Good leadership lives at the intersection of character, competence, courage and results.

Goodness and leadership are not the same assignment

When my team member described a good person, she used words such as dependable and trustworthy. Those qualities also belong in any description of a good leader. If people cannot trust your word, motives or judgment, your leadership will eventually become expensive for everyone around you.

However, leadership creates additional responsibilities. A friend can support you without deciding how a company should allocate scarce capital. A kind colleague can listen sympathetically without telling you that your work is below the required standard. A generous person can avoid confrontation because they do not want to hurt anyone. A leader cannot always do that, because avoidance transfers the consequence to the rest of the team, the customer, the investor or the future of the organization.

Leadership is not simply goodness made more visible; it is goodness carrying responsibility for an outcome.

John C. Maxwell’s Developing the Leader Within You discusses influence, priorities, integrity, change, problem-solving, attitude and people. Those themes reveal why leadership cannot be reduced to popularity. A leader must earn trust and develop people, but must also help the organization do what it exists to do.

If a business repeatedly misses payroll, fails customers, loses money and refuses to correct poor execution, the leader cannot defend the situation by saying, “At least everybody likes me.” The organization has obligations. Employees depend on it; customers have trusted it. Investors have committed capital. Families may depend on the income it creates. Results are therefore not a shallow obsession with numbers; they can be a moral responsibility.

Leadership is not a popularity contest

One of the most important corrections in our conversation was that being a good leader does not mean that everybody likes you.

People often enjoy leaders who approve requests, avoid uncomfortable feedback, tolerate missed commitments and protect everyone from the consequences of weak performance. Such leaders may create temporary emotional comfort, but comfort and health are not always the same thing.

A parent who never corrects a child may be liked in the moment while failing the responsibility of parenting. A coach who never demands discipline may remain popular while preventing the team from improving. A manager who keeps an unsuitable person in a critical role may appear compassionate to that individual while being unfair to every colleague carrying the unfinished work.

Popularity asks, “How do people feel about me right now?” Leadership asks, “What does this person, team or organization need in order to become healthy and fulfil its purpose?”

The answer will sometimes make people happy. At other times it will disappoint them. Mature leaders listen to reactions without allowing reactions alone to determine the decision.

This does not mean that leaders should become proud of being disliked. Some people use “I am not here to be liked” as permission to communicate badly, ignore people or behave cruelly. If everybody consistently experiences you as harsh, confusing or unsafe, you should not automatically interpret their response as proof of courageous leadership. You may need to examine yourself.

The aim is not popularity or unpopularity; the aim is trust, clarity and responsible results.

Results are part of the definition

A leader must be results-driven because leadership is exercised on behalf of a purpose.

Every organization exists to create some form of value. A business must solve customers’ problems and remain economically sustainable. A hospital must care for patients safely; a school must help students learn. A church must fulfil its spiritual assignment with integrity. A public institution must serve citizens within its mandate.

Good intentions do not fulfil those responsibilities by themselves. This is why leaders must translate aspiration into priorities, priorities into action and action into measurable outcomes. They must ask what success means, determine what the organization will not do, assign responsibility, create feedback systems and intervene when reality departs from the plan.

Results also have to be defined properly. Revenue achieved through deception is not a good result. A target reached by exhausting the team until excellent people leave may conceal long-term failure. A project delivered on time but unsafe for customers cannot be called successful. The leader’s responsibility is not merely to hit a number; it is to produce sustainable outcomes consistent with the organization’s values and obligations.

The best scorecard includes both what was achieved and how it was achieved.

This is where goodness and leadership meet. Character constrains the methods. Competence improves the execution. Courage enables the necessary decisions. Results reveal whether the leadership is producing value.

Trust comes before sustained influence

Dependability matters because people must believe that your commitments mean something. Trustworthiness matters because leaders possess information, authority and discretion that can affect other people’s lives.

Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei presents trust through three components: authenticity, logic and empathy. People are more likely to trust you when they experience the real you, believe that your reasoning is sound, and sense that you care about them rather than only about yourself.

This model is useful because it shows that trust is not the same as niceness. A leader may speak gently but lose trust because their reasoning is incoherent. Another may be highly competent but lose trust because people believe they do not care. Another may appear caring and intelligent but behave so inconsistently that nobody knows which version is real.

A trustworthy leader tells the truth about performance. They do not alter the facts to protect their image. They do not promise what they cannot deliver merely to make a conversation pleasant. They explain decisions where confidentiality permits, admit mistakes and apply standards with reasonable consistency.

Trust does not require the team to agree with every decision. It requires them to believe that the leader is acting with integrity, relevant judgment and genuine regard for the people and mission involved.

Tough decisions are not evidence of bad character

Leadership eventually places you in situations where every available option has a cost.

You may need to close a product that employees worked hard to build. You may need to stop funding an initiative that has not produced evidence of value. You may need to say no to a partnership that would generate revenue but weaken the company’s integrity. You may need to restructure a team, reject a promotion request, reduce expenses or remove someone from a role.

None of those decisions should be taken casually; they affect real people. But delaying a necessary decision does not eliminate its cost; it usually redistributes and enlarges it.

Suppose one person repeatedly fails to perform a critical role despite clear expectations, support and feedback. Avoiding the issue may spare that person an uncomfortable conversation today. Meanwhile, colleagues compensate for the gaps, high performers become frustrated, customers experience poor service and the company pays for work that is not being delivered. What looked like kindness to one person becomes unfairness to many others.

The good leader asks whether the person understood the expectation, had the tools and support required, received timely feedback and was given a fair opportunity to improve. If the answers are yes and the performance still does not change, the leader must make the responsible decision.

Compassion should shape how the decision is made, not prevent every difficult decision from being made.

Care for people includes accountability

Some leaders believe they must choose between caring about employees and demanding results. This is a false choice.

People deserve clarity. They should know what is expected, why it matters, how performance will be assessed and what support is available. They deserve feedback early enough to improve rather than a surprising judgment after months of silence. They deserve recognition when they do excellent work and honest conversation when they do not.

Accountability without care becomes intimidation. Care without accountability becomes indulgence. Good leadership requires both.

This combination can be seen in the idea of psychological safety developed by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson. A psychologically safe team is one in which people can speak up, ask questions, acknowledge mistakes and challenge ideas without interpersonal fear. It is not a team without standards. In fact, psychological safety is most valuable when combined with high performance expectations: people can tell the truth precisely because the work matters and the team needs accurate information.

The leader who punishes every admission of difficulty will eventually stop hearing the truth. The leader who accepts every excuse will eventually stop seeing improvement. A healthy culture says, “Tell us what is happening, take responsibility for your part, and let us solve the problem.”

Humility and will belong together

Jim Collins’s research in Good to Great describes what he calls Level 5 leadership: a combination of personal humility and professional will. This pairing helps explain why good leadership can look paradoxical.

The leader is humble enough to listen, learn, share credit and confront their own errors. Yet the same leader possesses the resolve to pursue the organization’s long-term interest, maintain standards and make decisions that may be personally uncomfortable.

Humility without will can become passivity. Will without humility can become ego. The good leader does not need to be the loudest person in the room or the source of every answer. They hire capable people and allow expertise to influence decisions. They change their mind when better evidence appears. They create successors rather than making the organization permanently dependent on them.

But humility does not mean uncertainty about every standard. A leader can say, “I may be wrong about the method, so let us examine the evidence,” while remaining firm that dishonesty, disrespect or persistent negligence is unacceptable.

Do not use results to excuse damage

Because results matter, leaders can easily begin to worship them. A high-performing executive may be allowed to mistreat colleagues because the person brings in revenue. A salesperson may deceive customers and be protected because they exceed quota. A founder may humiliate employees and call it a high-performance culture. A manager may destroy people’s health to deliver one exceptional quarter.

These leaders appear successful because the visible scorecard is incomplete. Character is not an optional decoration added after targets are met. It determines which results are legitimate and whether those results can endure. Fear may produce compliance for a period, but it suppresses truth. Manipulation may close a deal, but it creates future distrust. Exhaustion may accelerate output temporarily, but it consumes the organization’s capacity to perform tomorrow.

If people achieve the target only because they are afraid to report reality, the number may itself be unreliable.

A good leader is therefore accountable for the human and ethical cost of execution. This does not require making every day comfortable. Growth can be demanding, feedback can hurt and transformation can be tiring. The question is whether the difficulty serves a legitimate purpose, respects people’s dignity and is managed responsibly.

Do not use goodness to excuse ineffectiveness

The opposite error is equally dangerous. Some people defend poor leadership by pointing to the leader’s personal kindness. “He has a good heart.” “She means well.” “He is a very nice person.” Those statements may be true, but the people depending on the organization still need competent leadership.

A leader who cannot make priorities clear creates confusion. A leader who refuses to address conflict allows resentment to grow. A leader who repeatedly makes weak financial decisions places employees’ livelihoods at risk. A leader who tolerates low standards teaches the team that commitments are optional.

Intentions matter morally, but consequences matter too. This is why leadership should be treated as a discipline that can be developed. A good person who is currently an ineffective leader is not condemned to remain ineffective. They can learn how to set goals, interpret data, communicate decisions, coach people, allocate resources, manage conflict and review performance.

Good character gives them a foundation. Competence allows that character to become useful at scale.

A framework for difficult decisions

When a leader faces an unpopular choice, five questions can provide discipline. First, what outcome am I responsible for? Define the obligation clearly. Is it customer safety, financial sustainability, team performance, regulatory compliance or another legitimate purpose?

Second, what are the facts? Separate evidence from rumours, assumptions and emotional reactions. Understand the numbers, listen to the relevant people and identify what remains uncertain.

Third, who will bear the consequences? Consider the person directly affected, but also customers, colleagues, shareholders, families and the future organization. Compassion that sees only the most visible individual may ignore everyone else.

Fourth, have I created a fair process? Were expectations clear? Was feedback timely? Did the person have support and a reasonable opportunity to respond? Is the standard applied consistently?

Fifth, how can I execute the decision with dignity? A necessary decision does not require unnecessary humiliation. Communicate directly. Do not exaggerate faults to make yourself feel justified. Protect confidential information. Offer appropriate transition support where possible.

This framework does not make difficult choices painless; it makes them more responsible.

How to know whether you are leading well

Do not measure leadership only by how many people praise you. Do not measure it only by this quarter’s numbers either.

Ask a broader set of questions:

• Do people trust my word and motives?
• Are our priorities clear?
• Does the team understand what good performance means?
• Can people challenge me and report bad news?
• Do we address weak performance fairly and promptly?
• Are capable people growing under my leadership?
• Are we producing the outcomes we exist to produce?
• Are those outcomes sustainable and consistent with our values?
• Does the organization become stronger, or merely more dependent on me?

Leadership is visible in the quality of the system you create, the people you develop and the results the team can repeatedly produce.

You will not answer every question perfectly. Leadership involves trade-offs, incomplete information and mistakes. The test is whether you remain humble enough to learn, courageous enough to correct and disciplined enough to keep the mission and the people in view.

Speak the truth in love

My faith gives me a helpful way to hold these responsibilities together. Ephesians 4:15 speaks about “speaking the truth in love.” Truth without love can become cruelty. Love without truth can become sentimentality. Leadership requires the courage to say what is real and the character to say it for the right reason.

Jesus was compassionate, but compassion did not make Him incapable of confrontation. He served people, told the truth, corrected His followers and remained committed to His assignment even when others misunderstood Him. Servant leadership is not weak leadership. Service concerns itself with what genuinely helps people, not merely with what keeps them pleased.

A leader may need to say no, give difficult feedback or make a decision that disappoints someone. The leader should examine their motives: am I protecting the mission and the people entrusted to me, or am I exercising power to protect my ego? The same external action can come from very different hearts.

Good leadership requires internal work because authority amplifies character. If you are insecure, power can make you defensive. If you crave approval, leadership can make you avoid necessary decisions. If you are proud, responsibility can make you stop listening. Staying close to God, inviting honest feedback and examining your motives are therefore not separate from leadership; they help protect the people affected by it.

You should not have to choose

So, is it better to be a good person or a good leader?

The answer is that a good leader should be a good person who has accepted the additional discipline of responsibility.

Being a good person gives leadership its moral centre. It produces integrity, dependability, humility, empathy and trust. Being a good leader requires those qualities to be joined by competence, courage, judgment, accountability and the ability to achieve worthwhile results.

A good person may avoid hurting anyone’s feelings. A good leader cares enough to tell the truth respectfully.

A good person may help one individual. A good leader must consider the effects of a decision on the entire system.

A good person may be dependable in carrying out a task. A good leader must ensure that the right tasks are chosen, properly assigned and successfully completed.

A good person may be liked. A good leader must be trusted, and trust sometimes survives a decision that popularity cannot.

Leadership will occasionally paint you as unkind in the eyes of people who experience only the immediate cost of your decision. That possibility should make you reflective, not paralysed. Explain where you can. Listen carefully. Correct yourself when you are wrong. Then make the decision your responsibility requires.

Do not abandon goodness in pursuit of results. Do not abandon results in the name of goodness.

Lead with character. Care for people. Face the facts. Make the difficult decision. Achieve the result in a way that allows you and the organization to remain worthy of trust. That is what it means to be a good leader.

References and further reading

• John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You 2.0.
• Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t. See also his overview of Level 5 Leadership.
• Frances Frei, “How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust”, TED.
• Amy C. Edmondson, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth.
• Ephesians 4:15.