Coming home proud

An earlier version of this appeared on rework.com.

One of my favorite books on leadership is The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. The idea that stayed with me is simple. Good leaders care deeply about people. And they still ask a lot of them.

I’ve tried to live that since the first day of building Rework. It is harder than it sounds.

The happiest moments for me are small. Someone on the team takes on a mission and owns it, with pride. That is what I hope work can be. Not just a paycheck, but a place to find a better version of yourself. A place where you trust people, and they trust you.

Nobody enjoys meetings full of pointless arguments. Nobody likes paperwork for its own sake. Those things drain the passion out of all of us.

I want people to go home and tell their kids, their parents, their partners about their day. Tired, but proud.

But a business is also a fight to survive. A quarter disappoints. A client leaves. Competition heats up. The pressure builds, and we get angry, stressed, disappointed. We are human.

So how do you keep the kindness when the pressure is on?

For me, the answer is accountability. When something goes wrong, the easy question is “Who messed up?” The answer is usually obvious, and it doesn’t help much. The better question is “What can we learn?” Not “How do we control this better?” but “How do we fix this together?”

When someone struggles, we sit down together and look at what happened. When we miss a target, we face the numbers honestly and change the approach. We celebrate wins together. We own failures together.

It only works if people feel safe telling the truth. Safe to say “I don’t know.” Safe to own a mistake without fear.

The beautiful part is that accountability makes room for being human. You can be disappointed in a result and still trust the person. You can push for excellence and still care.

And sometimes it doesn’t work out. Someone has to leave. Even then, it can be a good goodbye, with real wishes for the best.

Accountability isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being honest, learning fast, and moving forward together.