Stop Apologizing for Boundaries: A Reflection on Boundary Card #12 from the High Ground Deck

The last card in the Boundary category, #12, is one of my favorites. It leads with an icon of a finger to the lips. Not a stop sign. Not a wall. Just a gentle shhh. That detail matters to me, because everything about how I've learned to hold boundaries has been less about bracing for a fight and more about getting quiet enough inside to know what's actually mine to carry. The Boundary card description says these cards are practices for protecting your capacity and setting limits without damaging relationships. That's true. It's also not the whole story.

Ronald Heifetz's adaptive leadership framework names a specific trap that I have fallen into, watched colleagues fall into, and honestly was once coached directly into: becoming the system's hero. The person who contains all the anxiety, compensates for every gap, and says yes to everything. Early in my career I was taught that saying yes until they couldn't imagine not having me there was a valid strategy for making emergency management valued. I tried to validate that more times than I'd like to admit. It didn't work. In fact, it backfired.

Now I understand that if everything is important, nothing is, and you can say no in a lot of ways that sound like maybe or The last card in the Boundary category, #12, is one of my favorites. It leads with an icon of a finger to the lips. Not a stop sign. Not a wall. Just a gentle shhh. That detail matters to me, because everything about how I've learned to hold boundaries has been less about bracing for a fight and more about getting quiet enough inside to know what's actually mine to carry. The Boundary card description says these cards are practices for protecting your capacity and setting limits without damaging relationships. That's true. It's also not the whole story.

Heifetz's adaptive leadership framework names a specific trap that I have fallen into, watched colleagues fall into, and honestly was once coached directly into: becoming the system's hero. The person who contains all the anxiety, compensates for every gap, and says yes to everything. Early in my career I was taught that saying yes until they couldn't imagine not having me there was a valid strategy for making emergency management valued. I tried to validate that more times than I'd like to admit. It didn't work. In fact, it backfired.

Now I understand that if everything is important, nothing is, and you can say no in a lot of ways that sound like maybe or not right now.

The problem with always absorbing the system's greatest need in the moment is that the system never has to adapt. People stop being part of solving their own problems. And when you apologize, for finally saying no, for missing a deadline, or for burning yourself to a crisp, you are inadvertently telling the people around you that you have done something wrong. You probably haven't.

Women especially know this pattern. We apologize for our limits, our pace, our priorities, and for things we don't even own. I've worked hard at one specific reframe: gratitude instead of guilt. "Thanks for your patience" instead of "I'm so sorry for the delay." It sounds small, but it changes something real. You are signaling, most of all to yourself, that you have not done anything wrong, and you put the focus on gratitude for what someone else offered you.

The deeper thing is knowing what you own and being comfortable with your sequence, priorities, and timing. Not defensive about it. Just clear.

My dad was the OG adaptive leader in my life. He was an elected sheriff in the county where I grew up for 20 years. He transformed that agency. At 5'7", people were always surprised when they met him that he wasn't taller. They had imagined him big. He was confident and decisive, and if you really know him, you know he is also a compassionate leader who cares deeply: for the people he loves, for the people who worked for him, for the community he served, and for the people in his jail. He never lost sight of their humanity either.

Once, Newsweek accused the sheriff of being soft on crime that they alleged was happening at a popular local club, and they didn't even get his jurisdiction right. He didn't explain or apologize. He just responded: "The only things I'm soft on are my children and floppy-eared dogs."

That's Boundary card #12. That's the shhh. Know who you are and what belongs to you. Answer from who you are, confidently. Leave the rest alone.