One of my clients recently had to make a difficult hiring decision while interviewing a talented candidate from another team. As every senior leader knows, the politics of what can be perceived as poaching top talent can get prickly fast. She thought carefully about her values and let them guide how she approached these interviews.

Then she found out someone was unhappy with her approach. As a self-admitted people pleaser, this bothered her. She brought it to me, rehashed the situation, and asked, “What advice do you have for me? How should I have handled this differently?”

As an executive coach, I don’t give advice. So I asked her a different question:

What are you willing to be criticized for?

The higher you rise in leadership, the more ambiguity and competing goals you face. Colleagues and bosses have opinions on the right thing for your career. People are eager to weigh in on the best decision you should make, and it is tempting to go along with popular opinion and whatever seems to make everyone happy.

Many executives hold real fears about upsetting both their senior leadership and direct reports. A 2024 paper in Administrative Sciences identified fear of negative employee evaluation as a core fear shaping leadership behavior. Many of my executive coaching clients share anxieties around an employee posting about them on LinkedIn, gossiping about them in the office chat, or an employee getting so upset they decide to quit.

Thankfully, the data doesn’t support this fear. A 2025 LiveCareer survey found that while 58% of employees witness workplace gossip weekly, senior leadership is the least involved group (appearing in just 6% of gossip conversations, compared to 53% for mid-level employees). However, the fears are real, and it’s no wonder so many leaders are defaulting to the safest, blandest version of themselves. But staying quiet has its own cost. A recent Harvard Business Review piece makes the case that leaders who confuse being “nice” with being effective avoid the hard conversations and decisions that organizations actually need from them. And researchers studying the psychology of online shaming note that the fear of being cancelled pushes people toward safer, blander work – which kills the very innovation and conviction that strong leadership requires.

If you want to lead with your values and by what you stand for instead of settling into a blander version of you, here are five places to start.

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