EP 109: Are Your “Soft” Boundaries Creating Leadership Chaos? How Executives Hold the Line Without Losing Trust
Boundaries Aren’t Harsh. They’re Responsible Leadership.
Most leaders think they have good boundaries.
And to be fair—many do, in the places that feel professional and controlled. But boundaries tend to fail in two environments: the ones that matter most, and the ones that apply the most pressure. That’s true at work, at home, and anywhere authority meets relationship.
Here’s what I’ve noticed across executive teams, client organizations, and more personal conversations than I can count:
The boundary issue is rarely about policy.
It’s almost always about clarity under pressure.
The quiet anxiety leaders carry about boundaries
When the word “boundary” comes up, I hear a particular kind of hesitation. Leaders don’t usually say it directly, but it sounds like this:
If I’m too clear, I’m going to come across cold.
If I hold the line, I’ll lose their trust.
If I assert authority, I’ll damage the relationship.
So instead, we soften. We over-explain. We write policies we don’t intend to uphold. Or we uphold them until the first serious pushback—and then we cave in real time and call it “being human.”
Most of the time, that’s not an HR problem.
It’s a clarity problem. An expectation problem. A communication problem. A boundary problem.
And boundaries aren’t harsh. They’re responsible.
The split leaders rarely name: protecting the organization vs. protecting identity
There’s a leadership tension most executives don’t articulate, but they live it every day:
They want boundaries to protect the organization,
but they want flexibility to protect their identity as a “good leader.”
So, they split the difference.
They write firm policies.
Then they undermine those policies in person—over and over again.
That’s where trust begins to fracture.
Not just with employees, but inside the management layer. Middle managers end up enforcing boundaries the executive team won’t hold. Favoritism perceptions grow. Escalation becomes a strategy. And the culture slowly learns that accountability is negotiable if you apply enough pressure.
That’s not kindness.
That’s fear wearing empathy’s clothes.
Presence without boundaries feels unsafe
I’ve worked inside organizations where everything is documented—work instructions, process summaries, standardized decisions. In those environments, people can start to feel replaceable.
That’s not a boundary problem. That’s an authority vacuum.
Because boundaries without presence can feel mechanical.
But presence without boundaries feels unsafe.
When standards are unclear or inconsistently enforced, employees may not be able to name what’s wrong—but something feels off. They don’t know what matters. They don’t know what will change based on who complains. They don’t know what is stable.
A “safe workplace” isn’t only about physical safety or surface-level comfort.
It’s also about whether the system is predictable enough for people to speak up, fail forward, and disagree without fear of relational fallout.
When “vulnerability” becomes boundary collapse
Brené Brown makes a distinction leaders need to stop missing:
Vulnerability is truth with discernment.
Boundary collapse is handing authority to other people’s reactions.
Leaders often think they’re being vulnerable when they’re actually seeking relief—relief from discomfort, tension, or the risk of being disliked.
Saying, “I hear you,” does not require, “and therefore I’ll change my decision.”
Vulnerability without authority doesn’t humanize leadership. It destabilizes it.
At a senior level, boundaries aren’t about control. They’re about containment.
People don’t feel safe because leaders are soft.
They feel safe because leaders are consistent.
The real cost of boundary collapse in organizations
Every time a leader caves, three things happen:
The organization learns that pressure works.
Managers learn that escalation beats accountability.
The leader quietly loses credibility—with others and with themselves.
This is why I talk about self-trust so much.
Leaders spend an enormous amount of energy asking, “Do they trust me?”
But the deeper issue is, “Do I trust myself to hold what I said matters?”
If you routinely circumvent policy because you “don’t agree with it,” then you don’t have a flexibility issue—you have an alignment issue. That’s an executive-team conversation, not an individual workaround.
And if the policy is sound but you still bend every time someone pressures you, you’re not being compassionate. You’re training the system to challenge you.
Henry Cloud’s principle: responsibility, ownership, consequences
Henry Cloud says boundaries define who is responsible for what—and who is not.
In leadership, boundaries are not primarily about control. They’re about ownership and consequences.
When leaders remove boundaries, they don’t become more supportive. They become over-responsible. And the organization becomes underdeveloped.
I learned this one the hard way.
When a leader over-functions—steps in, fixes it, makes sure it gets done—the team never has to mature. The work still happens, so the system never feels the cost of underperformance until the leader eventually hits a wall.
And then, when accountability finally arrives, it feels like betrayal.
Not because expectations were never communicated.
But because consequences were never consistently held.
Leaders aren’t tired because they care too much.
They’re tired because they’re carrying responsibility that isn’t theirs.
Confusion is expensive
Clarity isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s an operational advantage.
When boundaries are vague or inconsistently enforced, stress increases—not decreases. Leaders end up managing the emotional fallout of avoided authority.
Unclear boundaries don’t make you humane.
They make you unpredictable.
And unpredictability is where trust goes to die.
Trust is reliability under pressure, not endless flexibility
Trust is not built through accommodations.
Brené Brown reframes trust as reliability and integrity under pressure. She’s also blunt about something leaders need to stop arguing with:
Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
What’s often missed at the leadership level is this:
Unclear boundaries can feel like emotional generosity in the moment,
but they register as betrayal over time.
Leaders don’t lose trust by saying no.
They lose trust by saying yes and resenting it…
or saying yes and reversing it…
or enforcing standards selectively depending on who is uncomfortable.
Trust is built when people understand:
what matters here
what doesn’t
what won’t change based on pressure
Boundaries are how adults stay in relationship without resentment
This is true at work—and it’s true at home.
Boundaries are not the opposite of love. They are how relationships stay intact without silent bitterness and emotional debt.
Clarity doesn’t remove tension. But it prevents resentment from becoming the operating system.
Stewardship, finitude, and discerned availability
From a faith perspective, boundaries aren’t a modern leadership trend. They’re a form of stewardship.
“Let your yes be yes and your no be no” isn’t harsh. It’s integrity.
Throughout scripture, authority is paired with limits—not popularity. Even Jesus withdrew. He disappointed people. He didn’t endlessly explain himself.
Withdraw isn’t avoidance. It’s stewardship.
Authority does not equal availability.
Clarity does not equal cruelty.
Inconsistent authority erodes trust far faster than firm boundaries ever will.
Parenting is the fastest mirror of leadership boundaries
Children don’t feel secure when rules change based on mood or pushback. They feel secure when boundaries are clear, consistent, and held with presence.
Teams are the same.
Inconsistency creates anxiety even when it’s labeled kindness. And when boundaries are inconsistent, people push harder—not because they’re trying to be difficult, but because the system is unclear and they’re trying to find the edge.
The executive-level question
At the executive level, the work isn’t learning to set boundaries.
It’s deciding which boundaries you’re willing to be misunderstood for.
Being clear may disappoint people. Holding the line may create tension. Explaining the why doesn’t mean negotiating the outcome.
And this is where advisory support matters—because leadership can be lonely, and authority is hard to practice without reinforcement.
Leaders don’t struggle with policies most of the time.
They struggle with self-trust under pressure.
A question to leave you with
Where have you mistaken responsibility for harshness—
and paid for it with confusion instead?
If you already know clarity is the issue (not compliance), this is the work I do through fractional CHRO partnerships, executive advisory, leadership retreats, and board-level conversations—strengthening the authority behind the decisions, not just documenting the decisions themselves.
If you want to catch the full episode, watch it here.
