Snip
You're trying to present kindness as some kind of naive weakness and it's really just that it's bad risk management. Those are different problems altogether. Being kind does not mean being stupid about it. You can be decent to people without having no boundaries. The issue is when people mistake being kind with having no standards or expectations. You can pay fairly, treat people well AND still fire someone who's not performing. These are not contradictory unless you make them that way.
Yes, being kind doesn't mean you have to be weak all the time so that you can be exploited by employees, but there must be boundaries and firmness to show the character of strength as a leader. Treating employees well to maintain balance in a business is a natural and common thing for company leaders to do, but they must have high expectations and take necessary action if their subordinates do not meet standards. It is not about the good or bad nature of the leader, but the direction is towards fairness and professionalism to create harmonious relationships and increase productivity.
And that saying about honest people - sure, honesty is a rarity. But perhaps that's because we've created economies that penalise doing so? When being honest means that you lose opportunities to people who are willing to lie, you're not selecting for honesty. You're only selecting for those who can fake it best. Which seems like just the opposite of what anyone wants.
My teacher once told me, Always prioritize honesty and be willing to work hard because companies don't need smart but dishonest and lazy people who are only a burden to others. Honesty symbolizes everything, a leader can also recognize the character of his employees who really have loyalty and who are just pretending. Abusing the boss's kindness shows the employee's bad character and is unprofessional at work, this kind of behavior will be very detrimental to oneself.