Emotional durability in leadership
Leadership is an exercise in endurance. Not physical—emotional. You unify the vision, translate different perspectives into a single narrative, and you do not flinch when that narrative gets challenged. You know when to push and when to say no. That is the job.
I used to think that this meant that my manager was being a smartass. Asking me if I had spoken to person a, b, or c? And I always answered that, of course, I had. I knew what I was doing. Until it happened that I did not because I lacked the context. That moment stayed with me.
This happens all the time at organizations of low level of maturity. Everybody's crazy smart and capable. Tons of experience. Chances are that they all have a track record of impressive accomplishments.
Chances are that they also know this. And how to do the job. But here's something that I often see disregarded: emotional strength to do the necessary.
You've heard it a thousand times: we need to plan better. We have a communication issue. The knowledge base is fragmented. There is no single source of truth. The decision making is made on the go and no one takes ownership.
That's the crux. We all meet and make decisions on the fly. We even write them down. We even use the same tools and tickets.
But the owners of the decisions get worn down. They have to explain the same decision over and over to different teams and in different contexts. And be ready for, even welcome, being challenged every step of the way.
We all have opinions. Some are even experts at what they do. But a leader is supposed to contextualize, align, pick a fight, and see it through.
Some get to these positions simply because it was next. And they fall short in trying to defend the product decision that's already been reviewed and made with due diligence.
They give up. Decide that the stress is way above the pay grade and just start nodding.
We've all seen it in practice. Decisions made in isolation, miscommunicated, each one reasonable on its own, but collectively exhausting. Business considers it an unfair advantage to certain customers. Change the offering. Management is fed up with the latest incidents—migrate away from CloudFlare to something more durable. Infrastructure recreates the pipeline—product does not like the port numbers. Change them again, same starting digit. Support is drowning. Nobody reacts.
We do the work. And change it again. And again. And talk. Incessantly.
The leadership proclaims: everybody's doing the best they can. But they can feel it. Everybody on edge. Not because they can't do their jobs. But because they have been forced to redo a simple task multiple times.
Therein lies the rub. People need meaning. Motivation. I concede—there are jobs and workers in the world where the bare minimum is enough.
I also feel that in building software, product, and technology—people are ambitious. They want to feel like they contribute. Like they build something that matters.
This is why weak leadership kills teams and products. It's a slippery slope, the ladder, and a paradox in its own right.
You climb the ladder. Become a leader. Find it emotionally taxing. Become agreeable and start nodding. The team does the same. And together you do a disservice to the company as well as yourself.
It's difficult to recognize whether you actually want it or you believed somebody that you should want it. But one thing is certain: emotional durability is not a soft skill. It is the job.