show tenderness

As well as the prickliness, you have a great ability to show tenderness in your work, I say.

In a contest for the presidency, a position traditionally viewed in martial terms, it may be easier for a man of Mr. Biden’s backslapping swagger or Mr. Booker’s athletic stature to show tenderness or vulnerability without fear of appearing weak.

Members of the undercover unit, career operatives in their late 30s and 40s, show tenderness toward their children and lovers at home, and then go off and commit torture and worse.

To show tenderness is to admit weakness.

There was a variation in his  voice as he turned to songs from "Sea Change"; a willingness to sustain notes, to show tenderness.