A leader with 30 years of experience argues that chasing universal happiness stalls growth. Real development requires discomfort. Focus instead on making people better, and they'll become more capable and find deeper satisfaction.
Let me give you some advice after 30 years of leadership. If you're leading one person or multiple people, stop trying to make all of your people happy. Let me repeat that one more time. Stop trying to make all of your people happy. Our jobs as leaders is not to try to make everybody happy. We'll go crazy trying to do that because you have to change something for everybody. If we're smart about it, our focus becomes on making people better, helping them grow, because growth comes with discomfort. And I'm not suggesting that we want to make it uncomfortable for people to work with you and to work for you. But when we focus on the wrong thing, we get the wrong result. Focus on making your people better. Guiding them to become a better version of themselves, achieving things they never thought possible, and more of them will be happy. But try to make everybody happy, and few of them, if any, will actually grow.
