Accountable and Kind

On directness, disability, and the kindness that actually respects people.

Hello, friend.

There’s a version of kindness I’ve been working to unlearn.

It’s the kind that softens a decision until it’s unrecognizable. That hedges and qualifies and apologizes until the person on the receiving end isn’t sure what actually happened. It prioritizes the other person’s comfort in the moment over their ability to understand where things stand. It feels like kindness because it avoids conflict. I’ve learned the hard way that it isn’t. It’s just a way of making hard things harder by making them murkier.

I discuss an example that happened in the workplace below, but I mean everywhere. In friendships, in family, in any relationship where you’ve ever said “it’s fine” when it wasn’t. Where you’ve softened a hard truth into something unrecognizable to avoid the discomfort of saying it clearly. Where you’ve left a door open that you knew was closed, because closing it felt unkind.

I used to think being direct and being kind were in tension. I don’t believe that anymore.

---

Here’s what I’ve learned about accountability in the last year.

When you have a chronic condition, you have to negotiate constantly. With your body, with your schedule, with your expectations of yourself, with the world. I’ve learned that accommodations are not favors—they’re adjustments that make it possible for me to do what I’m capable of doing. I’ve also learned that accommodations don’t eliminate accountability. They change its shape. I still have things I need to do. I still have commitments. I still have to show up, in whatever way I can, and be honest when I can’t. I have to attend the meeting, I have to get the work done. I just may get to do it in a way that looks a little different from how others get to do it. They may attend the meeting in person, and I’m attending online, or they may have to get the work done by Friday, and I may have until Monday.

The same is true for the people I work with. I want to be an employer who takes disability and chronic illness seriously, who understands that bad weeks happen, that bodies are unpredictable, that some things take longer when you’re managing pain or fatigue or any of the other invisible weights people carry. I try to build that understanding into how I lead.

And I also need to hold people accountable. Both things are true.

The mistake, I think, is assuming that one cancels the other out. That if you understand why something is hard, you’re obligated to accept whatever outcome follows. That compassion means letting things slide. I don’t believe that anymore either.

---

Recently I made a decision that a long-term employee disagreed with. I knew they disagreed. I understood their perspective—I had listened to it, taken it seriously, weighed it against everything else I was considering. The decision I made wasn’t the one they wanted, and I knew it was going to cause them some distress.

I wanted to say that clearly, not imply that I might reconsider or that things were more uncertain than they were. I wanted them to know that their perspective had been heard and that it had mattered—and that I was going to stand by my decision anyway.

That’s uncomfortable to do. I felt a pull toward cushioning, toward endless caveats, toward framing the decision in a way that might leave the door open even when the door was closed. I’ve done that before—for years. It didn’t actually help anyone. It just delayed the moment of clarity and added confusion to an already hard situation.

What I tried to do this time instead was be direct. To say I hear you, I understand this isn’t what you wanted, I’ve thought about it carefully, and this is where I’ve landed. No apology for having made a decision. No suggestion that their distress would change the outcome.

---

I’ve been sitting with a phrase from a piece by Patricia Sears, a Substacker who works in end-of-life planning. She writes about why she refuses to soften her language around death and dying — to reach for euphemisms or cushioned phrasing when directness would serve people better. She calls the alternative “avoidance dressed up as kindness.” She’s writing specifically about end-of-life conversations, but the phrase stopped me because I think it applies much more broadly. You can read her piece here.

When we soften our decisions into mush, or imply that nothing is final when it is, or absorb someone else’s reaction as evidence that we’ve done something wrong, we’re not being kind. We’re being unclear. And unclear, in the long run, is unkind. That’s avoidance dressed up as kindness. Sears named it in one context; I keep finding it everywhere.

---

I don’t think accountability requires harshness. I’ve watched people confuse the two my whole career—the manager who thinks directness means coldness, the supervisor who delivers hard news as if the delivery itself proves their toughness. I’ve been confused about it myself. For a long time I believed that hurting someone’s feelings could be avoided with the right language, the right softening, the right number of qualifications. I kept trying to find the version of the truth that nobody would mind. There isn’t one.

What I’m describing is something simpler and harder: being honest about where things stand. Making sure the other person understands what happened and why. Not apologizing for decisions that were made thoughtfully and in good faith. And trusting the other person enough to give them the truth rather than a managed version of it.

This doesn’t only show up at work. I have a friend who regularly nudges at the edges of what I’ve said. I tell her I’m available at 2:00 and she asks if she can see me at 1:45. I tell her I’m not up for a phone call and she says, well, let’s just make it a short one. For a long time I would accommodate these adjustments, telling myself it was no big deal, that being flexible is part of caring for someone. What I’ve come to understand is that accommodating them was actually a way of avoiding the discomfort of holding my own line. The clear answer was already in my first response. She just kept asking until I found a softer one. I’m learning to let the first answer stand—because being clear with her is a form of respect for both of us.

Here’s the thing I most needed to hear, and that I want to offer to you: you are not responsible for managing other people’s reactions to the truth. You are responsible for delivering it with care. Those are different things, and collapsing them is where “avoidance dressed up as kindness” lives.

That’s the kindness I’m working toward. Not the kind that softens everything into nothing. The kind that respects people enough to be clear with them, even when clarity is uncomfortable.

Progress, not perfection. I don’t always get it right. But I’m getting better.

If something here resonates with you, I’d be honored if you shared it with someone who might need it today. Let’s help each other along on this journey. I’m grateful our paths have crossed.

Onward, in hope and solidarity.
Elizabeth

P.S. If this resonated with you, my email course Setting Boundaries Without Guilt might be exactly what you need next. It’s a 14-day self-paced course you can start any time, designed to help you hold your line without apologizing for it. $47 (20% off for paid subscribers). Start here.