Every Strength Has a Fine Line

There are fine lines between being kind and being soft.

Between being courageous and being aggressive.

Between being proactive and being restless.

Each pair sits on the same spectrum. The first is a strength. The second is the same strength, pushed too far. And the distance between them is often much shorter than we think.

Fine lines

Too much on one end, and our kindness becomes softness. Too much on the other, and our firmness becomes harshness. The quality does not change its nature. It changes its dose.

There are fine lines between many things. Confidence and arrogance. Patience and passivity. Attention to detail and an inability to let go.

If we are not fully aware of where we stand, our extreme positives on one end become our negatives on the other. And they may also cause us harm and grief.

That is what makes this hard. We do not drift towards the wrong end because we have bad intentions. We drift there by doing more of what has worked for us before. The kind person becomes kinder, until nobody takes their boundaries seriously. The courageous person pushes harder, until people stop hearing the point and only feel the force. The proactive person keeps moving, until movement becomes the goal and nobody remembers the direction.

From the inside, it still feels like the strength. That is why we rarely notice the line when we cross it.

A familiar pattern

Consider a manager known for being supportive.

She gives her team room. She listens. She extends deadlines when people are under pressure. For a long time, this is exactly what the team needs, and it is why people want to work for her.

Then a deliverable slips. She is understanding. It slips again. She is still understanding. A team member’s work starts to fall short, and she absorbs the gap herself rather than raise it.

Nothing she is doing is unkind. But the team has stopped reading it as kindness. Some read it as a lack of expectations. Others, who are carrying the extra load, read it as unfairness. Her own manager starts to read it as a lack of control.

She sees herself as kind. Others now see her as soft. Both are describing the same behaviour. The only thing that moved was where it sat on the spectrum.

The same pattern runs the other way. The leader praised for decisiveness who, a few years later, no longer consults anyone. The project lead praised for energy who now launches a new initiative every month while the last three remain unfinished.

Be aware of the spectrum

None of this is a reason to dial our strengths down. It is a reason to know where they sit.

So, be aware of the spectrum, and of where you are on it.

Understand how others perceive you and treat you. Their response is often the first signal that you have moved along the line, long before you feel it yourself.

Assess how you perceive yourself and treat yourself. The same fine lines apply inward. Self-discipline can become self-punishment. Self-acceptance can become self-excuse.

Neither view is complete on its own. How we see ourselves tells us what we intend. How others see us tells us what we are actually doing. The fine line usually sits in the gap between the two.

Awareness is a bliss.

Be fully awake – for a good reason.

The questions that remain

Here are some questions to ponder.

Which of your strengths have you been relying on most heavily lately?

Where on its spectrum would the people around you place it today?

And if they would place it somewhere different from where you would, which of you is closer to the truth?