"Hero” is an overused and much abused term. There’s even a concept called “heroic leadership.” (And now we are at the heart of the matter!)

Think about that phrase. What does it evoke for you? What image does it conjure?

Most leadership advice suggests that empathy is a key component to effective leadership, and I won’t disagree. Leaders empathize to improve their ability to communicate and to compromise. But…

Empathy is not inherently good. Empathy can be a component of morality, but it’s not moral in itself.

Have you ever considered the inherent value of taking action and getting things done? We sometimes refer to comic book heroes as “action heroes,” but do you think action is heroic in and of itself?

Sometimes it’s okay to break the rules. Sometimes it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Do you ever break the rules on purpose?

Have you noticed the recent change of seasons? I always feel inspired by the arrival of a new April to change things up myself. How about instead of writing about how awful bosses are, we take a look at how to be the best boss possible? After all, bosses are people too (at least in the biological sense).

So much information, and so little time to review it, which is to say nothing of comprehending and intelligently responding to it. We drift in a world awash in information, gulping it down as quickly as possible in hopes we don’t drown.

Yet, “leaders are readers,” or so they say. Leaders gain knowledge and a degree of understanding by guzzling information.

Why do the best leaders find it necessary to eschew comfort to pursue progress? It’s for the same reason that the best teachers challenge themselves while seeking to disrupt student complacency.

In the workplace and elsewhere, we can witness a different but similar sort of corruption in which an outside influence eats away at integrity until it’s compromised out of existence. That influence could be money or power, but often it’s overwork and stress leading to exhaustion, shoddy work, cover-ups, and increasing dishonesty. Much corruption stems from mental and moral fatigue and the action or inaction of those at the top of the organization.

The power structures and politics of the average workplace provide a perfect arena for cruelty. I have written about the necessity of human decency in leadership and the workplace, and decency forms the thematic backbone of my upcoming book, Greater than Great. I’ve also addressed the causes and types of bad behavior in the workplace, but what about plain mean-spiritedness in our workaday lives?

The current fashion is for business leaders to excitedly prattle on about “moving fast and breaking things,” but that’s most often heedless and even childish advice. “Breaking things” only works if you don’t care much what comes next. One of the fundamental challenges of leadership is deciding if, when, and how to disrupt the status quo—to break things.