Some (okay most) business leaders will ask the impossible of you. And don’t care that your failure to meet their unrealistic demand destroys you.

When I say “the impossible” I don’t mean in a metaphorical sense. I mean in a literal “this deadline and ask is impossible with the resources, competing priories and budget available” sense.

And they know it. It’s a leadership technique many subscribe too. They actually will be quite happy with the realistic results that end up might only be 60% of the stated target.

But they don’t say that. They demand all of it, thinking this will motivate folks to work their hardest and give 10% more, or whatever, than they would have otherwise.

And the end result is leadership hit their internal unstated target, but the staff, at least the ones who care, feel like they have failed. They didn’t hit the impossible goal and are not good enough in some way.

So leadership is satisfied but doesn’t say it and the staff is demoralized because they missed the unrealistic deadline and feel like failures.

How long can that last before the people with pride in their work give up and check out?

This is a bad leadership technique. Stop it.