If You Want to Thrive, Learn to Disappoint People

There's a skill nobody puts in the leadership development brochure.

It's not strategic thinking. It's not executive presence. It's not even emotional intelligence, at least not the version we usually talk about.

It's this: the ability to disappoint people.

The exhaustion nobody names

Most leaders I work with arrive burnt out. Not from the work itself, but from everything happening around the work.

I myself used to joke, not joke: if only work didn't get in the way of my work. Until I redesigned the notions and romantic ideas around leadership. That somehow leading and making things happen mean being free of interpersonal tension and challenge.

They don't.

The conversations we're avoiding. The truths we're softening. The needs of others we've quietly absorbed and carried home.

We now have a name for this: emotional labour.

The sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the term to describe the work of managing our feelings, and the feelings of others, as part of our job. But in leadership, it goes further than most of us realise.

Here's the part that surprises my clients: emotional labour isn't only what we do with emotions. It's also what we do when we avoid them.

When we don't have the hard conversation, that's labour. When we smile through the meeting and then lie awake at 2am, that's labour. When we absorb someone else's anxiety so they don't have to feel it, that's labour. When we take on the unexpressed emotions of others, or numb our own, that's labour too, and there is always a price tag.

When we solve a problem that wasn't ours to solve, because it was easier than watching someone struggle, that's labour.

Avoidance is not bringing us rest. We're still carrying the tension. We've just moved it somewhere less visible.

Nice and kind are not the same thing

We confuse these two constantly, and it costs us.

Nice is about our own comfort, specifically our need to be liked, to keep the peace, to avoid the discomfort of someone's disappointment. Nice softens the truth or says "that's a great idea" when it isn't. Nice lets a problem fester because the conversation feels too hard.

Nice sustains the illusion that everything is fine, and it is very good at it. Diplomatic and polite are close cousins. They know how to keep the illusion going, keep it camera-friendly. Far from authentic, and far from what serves everyone involved in the long run.

Unless transactional is the business we're in. If the goal is opportunistic and short-term, then resilient and sustainable partnership isn't what we're after, and that's a different conversation entirely. But if mutual growth is the objective, nice is not our friend.

Kind tells the truth, directly, respectfully, without cruelty. Kind respects the other person enough to be honest with them. If you want to thrive learn to say: I believe you can handle this.

The clearest, most useful thing I know about leadership communication I learned from Brené Brown: clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.

The monkey on your back that isn't yours

There's a concept in management called the transferred monkey. Someone comes to us with a problem. We listen, we empathize, we help. They leave feeling lighter. We leave carrying something that was never ours.

Multiply that by a team of ten, across five years, and we begin to understand why so many good leaders are exhausted.

Part of learning to lead is learning to hand the monkey back. "I trust you to handle this. What do you think you should do?"

That question is not abdication. It's an invitation for others to step up and expand the skills they'll need in the future.

Going through it, not around it

The exit from emotional labour overload isn't detachment. It isn't building higher walls or feeling less. It's developing the capacity to move through the emotion, ours and others', rather than around it.

Face the conversation. Say the true thing, the kind way. Disappoint the person if you must. Let them feel it. Trust that they will survive it, and that you will too.

On the other side of that conversation is something most exhausted leaders really need: clarity. Energy. The particular lightness of having said the real thing. Energy freed up to create, ideate, expand instead of just fixing.

That is what we work on together. Not how to feel less, but how to carry less. How to connect with something steadier inside ourselves than the need to be liked or the fear of conflict.

One last thing, before you go (and if you want to thrive)

I called this piece "learn to disappoint people" deliberately.

Here's the irony: if you get ready to do this well, you probably won't disappoint anyone. Not really. To those who understand leadership, you'll simply be doing it right.

The disappointment lives mostly in us, in the moment of transition. In what I call our pleasing brain, the socialized self that learned early and correctly that connection and safety depended on being accepted. That was true once. It kept us close to the people we needed. We were right to learn it.

But we are not children anymore. And the self-authored leader, the one who speaks clearly and holds boundaries and tells the kind truth, isn't disappointing others. They're simply including their most current, most authentic self in the room. It's the old self, in the moment of letting go, that mistakes growth for betrayal.

If any of this resonates, and especially if you recognize yourself somewhere in these pages, I'd love to connect. This is the work I do. I'm a leadership coach and I'd be honoured to be your thinking partner as you find your way from exhaustion to presence.

Let's talk!

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Hi, I’m Monika, Strengths Coach and facilitator. I help individuals and groups cultivate resilience, emotional intelligence, and well-being through strengths-based coaching. Passionate about transformative and creative leadership, I empower leaders to drive meaningful change within themselves, their organizations, and beyond.

I hope you’ll visit often, and I look forward to connecting and working together!