I saw Wicked 2 yesterday, and the song “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” hit a little too close to home.

Not exactly subtle… but painfully accurate for anyone who leads inside a system where good intentions don’t guarantee good outcomes.

Elphaba spends the entire story trying to do the right thing: helping, protecting, stepping in when everyone else is too scared or too comfortable... and somehow it’s still not enough. People twist her intentions, misunderstand her choices, assign motives she never had. In the end, she realizes that no matter how much good she intends, the world has already decided who she is.

There’s a version of leadership where speaking up makes you “difficult.”  Where challenging nonsense earns you a reputation you didn’t ask for and doing the right thing quietly costs more than anyone will ever see.  I absolutely understand how someone could reach the point where disappearing sounds easier than being misread again.

One of the most heart-wrenching moments for me was watching Elphaba understand that doing good doesn’t guarantee being understood. You can pour your life into something meaningful and still never control how the world interprets you. 

No one prepares you for the emotional toll of being both responsible for the work and misunderstood for the way you do it.

Leadership is full of moments where your intentions and the interpretation of those intentions don’t match. You do your best with the information, the time, and the emotional bandwidth you have… and still, someone will rewrite your role in the story. 

There comes a point in every leader’s life when you realize that being “right” in everyone else’s eyes is not the goal. 

Integrity isn’t measured by public consensus. And with time, you learn the difference between protecting the work and protecting the ego.

Sometimes the most grounded choice you can make is to stop correcting the narrative and simply live in the truth of who you are.

Most good deeds don’t get celebrated. Many get questioned. Some get twisted. That doesn’t make them less good; it just makes them harder to carry.

The takeaway for me wasn’t “go fake your death.” It was the clarity of knowing when to stop babysitting other people’s narratives. 

Let them think what they want. I can’t control the story people tell, but I can control the integrity I bring to the chapter that’s mine.

You don’t have to spend your life chasing down other people’s interpretations.
You don’t have to fix every misunderstanding.
You don’t have to edit the script other people write about you.

Just do the work with integrity, love the people you’re here to serve, and rise above the noise – no broomstick required.