Every Yes Has a Price: The Hidden Cost of Leadership Without Boundaries
I promised her I would be there.
My granddaughter’s class had been practicing their songs for weeks. She was excited, a little nervous, and every time we talked about it, she asked, “You’ll be there, right?”
I promised her yes.
But then a last-minute meeting landed on my calendar. It carried the weight of importance, the kind that feels impossible to skip. I convinced myself she would understand. I told myself there would be other performances.
That night, she looked at me and asked, “Did you see me wave from the stage?”
I hadn’t.
And in that moment, the ache I felt was sharper than any pressure I had carried from work.
The Myth of Yes
Leadership culture often teaches us that yes equals value.
Yes means you are dependable. Yes means you are ambitious. Yes means you can handle more.
But here’s the truth: every yes has a cost.
Sometimes the cost is presence at a family milestone. Sometimes it is your health. Sometimes it is clarity, traded away for someone else’s urgency.
A reflexive yes does not always prove value. Sometimes it proves erosion.
The Ache Beneath Success
The ache shows up in many ways:
Laughing on cue in a meeting while feeling disconnected inside.
Saying yes to another project while silently wondering where your space has gone.
Achieving the milestone but feeling strangely hollow afterward.
The ache is not weakness. It is direction. It is a signal that your yes has fractured you.
Boundaries as Leadership
We don’t talk about boundaries as a leadership skill often enough. But they are.
Boundaries are not selfish. They are alignment in action.
When you protect your energy, your team learns that sustainability matters more than speed. When you choose presence at home, people see that leadership is human. When you stop over-functioning, you model trust instead of martyrdom.
People can feel when your yes is clean—and when it is costing you too much.
Three Practices to Protect Your Yes
1. The Presence Reset Before you agree, pause for one breath. Ask: Am I saying yes from clarity, or from fear of being misperceived?
2. The Purpose Filter At the end of the day, ask: Did I choose urgency, or what truly matters?
3. The Alignment Check Each week, name one decision you made from wholeness. Over time, those aligned choices become a rhythm of trust.
A Call to Leaders
That night at my granddaughter’s school is a story I carry with me. It is the reminder that leadership is not just about what happens in the boardroom. It is also about the choices that ripple through our families and our lives.
Leadership without presence is not leadership at all. It is absence.
This week, I want to invite you to pay attention to your yeses. Not just the ones that sounded good, but the ones that felt heavy afterward. Ask yourself:
Did this yes deepen me, or deplete me?
Did it align with what matters most, or just keep me busy?
What no would protect the yes that truly matters?
Because leadership is not about collecting yeses. It is about protecting alignment. And every aligned no makes space for the yes that matters most.