Magnetic Authenticity Podcast with Jolynne Rydz

23: When Niceness Backfires -The Hidden Culture Problem

• Jolynne Rydz • Season 1 • Episode 23

Share episode

Comments, questions? Let's connect!

Ever worked somewhere that feels wonderfully warm, smiles in the hallway, team lunches, endless encouragement yet big truths only surface after the meeting ends? We dig into the hidden trap of over-indexing on niceness and show how polite silence can quietly choke innovation, slow delivery and erode psychological safety.

We share the tell-tale signs that a “nice culture” is backfiring: hallway debriefs where the real issues live, long pauses when you ask for feedback, a stream of vague praise that hides the hard edges and the shock of performance management plans that should never be surprises. Drawing on leadership practice and behavioural science, we unpack why dissent gets dismissed, how commitment bias pushes teams to defend poor choices, and why the most valuable risk-spotters are so often labelled negative.

Across the conversation, we offer practical tools leaders can use now. You’ll learn three diagnostics to test for safety and candour, how to reward constructive challenge without losing warmth, and ways to replace feel-good vagueness with precise, respectful feedback.

If this resonates and you want help assessing whether niceness is holding your team back, reach out: to jolynne@brillianceinspired.com.au. 

Your support matters, if you enjoyed this episode follow the show, share it with a colleague who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others discover it.

REFERENCES
Gallup, Inc. (2025, August 5). Anemic employee engagement points to leadership challenges. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/692954/anemic-employee-engagement-points-leadership-challenges.aspx (Accessed 20/11/2025)

💖Love the podcast?💖
You can pay it forward by:

  • Rating and Reviewing wherever you listen
  • Sharing it with others!


Ready to level up your impact?

➡️Book a complimentary mini-strategy session and I'll help unpack one of your current challenges

➡️Join our Masterclass Waitlist and get practical tools to level up your impact


Let's connect!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jolynne-rydz/

https://www.instagram.com/jolynnerydz/

https://www.facebook.com/brillianceinspired


I am a Confidence and Impact Coach for leaders, Organisational Development Consultant and independent Leadership Circle Profile® Certified Practitioner. Information shared about this tool is courtesy of Leadership Circle®, all rights reserved. www.leadershipcircle.com

Jolynne Rydz:

Everyone's so nice. Ooh, I love it when I hear this comment in an organization because there's a number of great things about it. One is it shows that the people in the organization seem to care about each other and are friendly. They are there to look out for each other, help each other. There's often a lot of great teamwork going on. People are connecting and making friends beyond the work as well. And I love it when I hear this because niceness can backfire. And it there can be a hidden cultural problem to it. So niceness for me shows up when people are say hello to you. People smile, people are willing to help you out, they eat lunch together. And that's great because we spend 1,800 hours together every year, if we're full-time at work. So why wouldn't you want to get along with everyone? So the hidden side to this is that polarity. And so much of leadership and so much of culture work lies in the polarity. So niceness on one end is something great and something you want to strive for in terms of that connection and the social side and the teamwork. But on the other end, when things are not going so well, it can actually stifle innovation, productivity, and engagement. So the very thing that it looks like it's helping, it can actually be diminishing. So when niceness backfires, things look great on the surface because everything's shiny, everyone's nice to your face. You know what I'm talking about. And I'm not talking about in a bad way, but it's the meetings that happen where things get talked about. And then when you close the door, there's all these side conversations happening about how likely is that to actually happen, what's standing in the way, what actually needs to be done to move things forward. That conversation is the conversation that should be had in the room to genuinely innovate and move a project forward. But if it's happening in the hallway, the right people are not hearing it. And if it's happening in the hallway, that's a sign that people don't feel safe to have that conversation in the room. And one of the reasons they don't feel safe is this niceness, when niceness gets over-indexed. So one of the ways you can look at this is what's being said and done outside of the meeting. So other signs that niceness might be backfiring for you is have you ever gone in, presented something, and asked for feedback or asked if anyone has any questions and you get crickets. Silence is a sign that people sometimes aren't ready for that. There can be other reasons why there's silence, but sometimes it's a sign that I can't say what I really want to say, or I might sound stupid if I ask a question. Or if I say this comment, people are gonna think I'm negative. So I'll just stay quiet. Other signs that this might be at play for you is that when you do ask for feedback, all the feedback is is great. It's encouraging. Yeah, you're doing fantastic. I love the idea. Let's run with this. Great. So on one hand, that can be really good if it's 100% genuine and authentic, and no dampening of what the truth is, no withholding comments and thoughts for later or someone else when you get home. So if it's only positive, you need to do some digging into is it truly only positive or are there things not being said? What's the perspective that hasn't been shared? So I'm not saying that nice is a bad thing. Nice is great. And in the pursuit of peak performance, in the pursuit of creating workplaces where people feel safe, psychologically safe, and able to thrive and bring their best selves to work, niceness sometimes isn't enough. And niceness sometimes can be too much nicen, can be a sign that there's systemic issues. So issues in terms of culture, in terms of systems and processes, in terms of unspoken things that are preventing people from performing at their peak. So when niceness backfires and this hidden culture problem arises, you might see things like lack of trust. And that can be lack of trust in people's own self, but it can also be lack of trust in others. So that shows up in terms of people being afraid to give or receive meaningful feedback, afraid to ask questions in case of what people think of them. Is this expectation that they they have to be nice, they have to know what they're doing. Or maybe if I ask a question, I'm interrupting someone, so I'm not being nice. There's also potentially a lack of psychological safety to be your whole self and say what you truly think. So think of all the messaging we get in our society that this is a bad thing to say what we truly think. Think about the whistleblowers that get their face blurred out on TV, the troublemakers, the people that just rock the boat, or the people that show up and are always negative, right? Those labels prevent people from saying probably meaningful things that we need to be aware of. Do you think Kodak had someone in a meeting that maybe was always seen as negative that was saying, hey, we need to pivot from film to something else because digital is coming. Digital cameras. I guarantee you there'll be someone in the organization who was at least thinking that. And if not saying it, they were maybe being dismissed. So another thing that can happen is when people realize I have to be nice. I don't want to be mean. And that's the most important thing about how I show up at work. There are there are side effects to that. So people feel valued for being nice rather than bringing really constructive, robust discussion and feedback to the table. So, what this can do when we over-index on being nice is we can create this kind of club vibe where everyone loves showing up. It's really social, and you do get stuff done, but you probably don't get as much done, or you don't do the really big innovative step challenges and changes that are really gonna get you having an incredible impact rather than, yeah, a pretty good impact. That's the difference. A really purposeful, agile, adaptable organization where people can put everything on the table, experiment, and play with it. So you're gonna say some of this is nothing to do with nicest, and that's true. But one of the key root causes is this over-indexing on niceness when niceness backfires. And it's so insidious on many level levels because nice, a nice culture is great. Like we that's something we look for, something we strive for. And so this is why when we have a nice culture, we've got to have our eyes and ears open for those subtle signs that maybe it's gone a little too far. So in 2025, Gallup reported that 29% of people felt there was a lack of clear communication or honesty and consistency in the way they communicated with their leadership. And only 28% of respondents agreed that their opinions mattered at work. Now let that sink in a little bit. That means like 70% of people, the majority, overwhelming majority of people, are feeling like they can't have an open, trusting conversation with their leader or their leadership team. They can't express an opinion and have it be heard or at least considered. And so how can we possibly innovate when the majority of people feel this way? Yeah, we can't. People are holding back. And this is so, so important. So if we're valuing people for being nice rather than contributing an idea that might be a crap idea, it might fail, who knows? But we don't know that until we honor that idea and run with it for a bit and see what happens and do some really constructive critical thinking around it. So one of the root causes of all of this dynamic is that hidden trap of nice and when it backfires and over-indexing on nice being important. So many years ago, I was in an organization and they were so nice, so friendly, you know, and everyone said hello to each other, everyone was offering help. And it was great because I've been in organizations where people don't meet your eye in the corridor, where they don't say hello, where people come in, sit down, do their work, go home, and they don't even interact or look up. Now there's a number of reasons for that as well. And one of the big reasons is the culture and the safety and the sense of connection or lack of. But this organization I was in was amazing. Everyone was really productive, people worked really well together. But over time, I started to notice something. There were cracks appearing, and there were those side conversations I mentioned earlier. And one of the biggest signs for me that this had this was backfiring, the niceness was backfiring for them, was the number of people who were shocked when they were put on a performance management plan, right? You know those plans. HR comes in, says you're not performing well, and this is the standard you need to reach, this is how we're going to support you to get there. Yes, we're gonna give you all this support. Now, if someone is shocked when that kind of process comes in, that tells me that they are not getting open and clear communication throughout their whole working life. It should never be a shock. And if it is a shock, that means often people don't have the tools to have those conversations or they don't realize that they're they're lacking clarity in their communication. And more often than not, and I say this because I've seen it time and time again, I've seen people say to me, but I've I've told them what they need to do. And I say, How do you how did you say it? They replay it back, and I said, No, that person is gonna have no idea that that's what you meant. So in the spirit of being nice, sometimes we we fluff and we water things down and we try and protect people's feelings because we don't want them to be upset. But I tell you what, those people who are being performance managed out and some of them being let go because it's gone too far, guarantee you that's way more painful than feeling, hearing up front that, oh, there's just something you need to tweak, and this is how a great way we could go forward. What support do you need? 100% being exited out of the organization or being put through a formal performance management process is way more painful. So we've got to reframe this idea of when we're nice, we kind of withhold the real truth and we soften it. Like Brene Brown says, clear is kind. We've got to be kind with these things. And that's different from being nice. All right, so how do we go about avoiding this problem of niceness backfiring? So the first thing I'm gonna invite you to do is to notice how people respond to you when you ask questions. When you ask for their feedback, ask for their insight, ask what they think about something, even ask for feedback about yourself. Do you get silence? Do they give you all their thoughts openly? Do they give you just one thing and let you run with that? Just notice what people do. That can give you so much insight into the level of trust and comfort people have in being completely open. The second thing you could do is to notice how people respond when someone shares something that could be seen as critical or negative. I've seen this so many times. There's a person in the room who has an incredible gift at spotting all the potential risks that we need to be looking at for a project. They raise those risks and people just shut them down or they talk about them in the hallway about God, they're always so negative. Why? Why do they do that? And yes, maybe that person needs a little bit of coaching on how to raise those items in a respectful way. And at the same time, we need to be very aware as leaders. Are we taking a little bit of negativity personally when we've put our heart and soul into moving a project forward? There's a bias in that. Psychologically, we are biased to when we say yes to something and we've we've backed it, that we want to keep backing it. And there's um there's a really cool show that I might share in the show notes that that illustrates this so powerfully and scarily. They did an experiment, a psychological experiment that had some of these seeds planted. So when someone made a mini commitment, they would make a bigger and bigger and bigger commitment because psychologically we are wired to back ourselves really in that way. And they ended up committing a crime right at the end. And these are people that would never, on a daily basis, even consider committing a crime. So it's such a fascinating show to watch. I'll have to dig it out, see if I can share it in the show notes for you. So my point is notice how people respond when someone brings up something that could put a break on things or could throw a spanner in the works or could be seen as negative or slowing things down. How can you give airtime to those people? And how can you notice what the reaction is? Because if the rack reaction is to shut them down and to say they're negative, then we're not seeing the value that that person can bring. And we're not giving them the skills that they need to be able to contribute in a really constructive way. So this is where niceness can shut things down and be really, really quiet negative. The third thing that you can do to see if niceness is backfiring is to ask people. Hey, just curious, on a scale of one to ten, how safe do you feel to raise a risk or concern? Or maybe it's hey, have you ever felt like you can't share something that you think would be really powerful for the room to hear? Just just ask people, go and notice and go and see if there's any form of hesitation in that answer. That that's an answer in itself. So sometimes it's not what people say because if the culture is so nice, people will respond with, oh no, no, of course, of course I'll say, of course I'm comfortable to to say anything, right? You've got to read between the lines, you've got to read the body language, the pauses, the hesitations, the eye contact. This is something I've been studying for so long. And it's so, so powerful. So it's one of the things I'm really passionate about in in terms of going into an organization and just observing everything that's going on, the things that people don't see, the systems that are working against an organization, the behaviors that on one hand are really, really great, but there's also some liabilities to them and how to work across those polarities. So I trust that this has been useful for you. And I just want to reiterate here that being nice does really matter. It creates warmth, it creates connection and care. But when niceness becomes a shield against honesty, discomfort, or pushback, it quietly limits our innovation, our performance, and our psychological safety, which we're learning now, is becoming more and more important. The focus has gone from physical safety in the workplace now to psycho, psychosocial safety as well. So all of this is critical for organizations. It's even just in the end of I live in Victoria and Australia, it's actually being enacted into the law that here organizations do need to look out for these psychosocial risks now. It's a requirement in the law. So this is one way you can you can look out for these. So our this ability to feel psychologically safe is linked to our ability to adapt. And we need to be able to adapt as people, as leaders, as organizations now more than ever. So the real leadership work here is knowing the difference between nice and nice backfiring. So if you want to explore if niceness is backfiring in your team, feel free to reach out to me on email. You can email me on jolynne@brillianceinspired.com.au. Thank you once again, and always remember you were born for a reason. It's time to thrive.