Too Nice to Be Good?

We all fall down at times.  Navigating a meaningful life means also navigating the inevitable challenges and sadnesses that come with leading a rich and fulfilling existence.  Grief is the price we pay for having loved, setbacks are a natural part of the tapestry of being brave enough to follow dreams.

And at those moments when individuals fall down, the ethical employer wraps around their colleague the support of a caring family.  I do not believe in the concept of compassion fatigue – there is always space for understanding and always capacity for love.

But to be compassionate and moral is not the same thing as being willing to be manipulated or duped.

When I lately returned to public service following decades in corporate life, I carried many assumptions with me, including those that first led me to enter teaching many years ago. Chief among those assumptions is that organisations exist to serve the people for whom they were founded. In the world of business, the client is king. The customer’s interests shape priorities, determine quality, and drive decisions about who belongs on the team. It is imperfect, often ruthless, but one principle is rarely in doubt: mediocrity cannot be allowed to fester, because mediocrity threatens the very purpose of the organisation.

I worry that this principle is less secure in the public sector.

In public institutions, including schools, it is easy to forget who we exist for.

Honest and thoughtful compassion for colleagues is always right. But there is a delicate line between compassion and avoidance. When we cross it, we start to run organisations not for the children or communities we serve, but for the adults who work within them.

I have seen too many instances, across years, across roles, across geographies, where underperformance is indulged rather than addressed. Where patterns of poor behaviour are met with a quiet shifting of responsibilities instead of a truthful and courageous conversation. Where the fear of process, paperwork, grievances, and headlines outweighs the imperative to act in the interest of those we serve and of those other colleagues who are damaged when toxic attitudes are allowed to remain.

In the private sector, one quickly learns that a single underperformer can drain the productivity and morale of an entire team. A workplace tolerating indolence or excusing the colleague who humiliates or undermines their peers, sends a signal to the truly dedicated and hardworking: excellence is optional, and effort is not worth the cost. Over time, the best people leave, not out of disloyalty, but because loyalty cannot thrive in a culture that refuses to protect standards.

In schools, the consequences are worse still. For it is not simply the morale of staff that is at stake, but the futures of children. Each moment a pupil spends in front of an underprepared, disengaged, or persistently absent teacher is a moment of their life they will not get back. In a sector that talks so often of disadvantage and social justice, it is a peculiar cruelty that we shy away from dealing with those whose presence does harm.

This is not a call for cruelty. Compassion is central to my being. I believe in professional development, support, and the endless possibility of growth and improvement. But compassion cannot mean avoidance. And kindness to adults must be delicately balanced with the greater priority of justice for children.

We should resist the public sector stereotype of promoting people out of incompetence. Not because people are disposable, but because purpose matters. Schools exist to serve children. Trusts exist to protect and nurture schools. Leadership exists to ensure that the moral purpose of education is not lost in convenience, fear, or sentimentality.

High-trust organisations are not organisations without standards. They are organisations that speak the truth – kindly, but firmly – and act when action is required. They are places where good people flourish because they know excellence is protected and mediocrity is not excused.

We rightly talk a great deal in education about retention, about valuing staff, about wellbeing, about the potential within our colleagues to incrementally become more expert. But if we are serious about creating environments in which people thrive, we must also be serious about protecting those environments from behaviours and performances that erode them from within.

It is possible to be both compassionate and courageous. In schools, it is not merely possible, it is essential. We do not work in education to serve ourselves, we are here for the children. And that truth, however uncomfortable, must always come first.