A week at the beach is nice. Two weeks might be even better.
But what if it stretched to a month? Thirty straight days in a chair by the water.
How would that feel?
At first, it sounds like heaven. But quickly, it would become hollow.
No resistance.
Nothing to push against.
No reason to get up other than to pass time.
That image forces a question:
If life without challenges feels empty, what does that mean for how we lead?
We Need Challenges
Most of us are wired to avoid hardship.
We want things to run smoothly.
We say we want less conflict, fewer obstacles, and an easier path forward.
But if we’re honest, life without challenges would not satisfy us.
It would numb us.
Viktor Frankl captured this clearly in Man’s Search for Meaning. He wrote that people can endure almost any hardship if they have a reason for it. What they cannot endure is the absence of meaning.
Without a struggle that matters, life collapses into despair.
At a much different level than Frankl experienced, work functions the same way.
The hard problems are what give us purpose.
The satisfaction of solving a tough client situation or a product flaw comes not in spite of the challenge, but because of it.
We are not fueled by ease.
We are fueled by struggle that matters.
We Need the Right Challenges
Not all challenges are equal, however.
Some drain us:
- Endless firefighting.
- Busywork dressed up as urgency.
- Political battles that serve no one.
These struggles wear us down because they do not connect to progress.
They feel like obstacles with no meaning on the other side.
What we need are the right challenges.
- Problems that stretch us.
- Problems worth solving.
- Problems that link us directly to the commercial purpose.
Viktor Frankl showed us that humans can endure suffering if it carries meaning.
Peter Turchin, in his book End Times, posits what happens when we don’t have access to meaningful roles and challenges: we don’t settle into peace.
We turn restless. Energy without purpose often gets redirected into conflict.
The same dynamic is true for teams.
Remove every real challenge, and people invent new ones.
That is where politics, turf battles, and petty conflicts come from.
Energy will flow, but without purpose, it will find its way to unintended consequences.
The Leader’s Job
This is where leadership matters.
Too often, we think our job is to make work easy:
- We want to smooth every bump.
- Remove every stress.
- Shield people from hardship.
But an easy job shouldn’t be the goal. A meaningful job is.
The role of a leader is to pave the way for the right challenges.
To make sure people are struggling in ways that build value, not just burn energy.
That means shaping the environment so the hard work is worth doing.
It means:
- Removing distractions;
- Clarifying direction; and
- Framing problems as opportunities that matter.
Try This: Make It Easier to Work Hard
- Clarify the challenge. Define the problem in simple, direct terms. State why it matters and what success looks like. People will work hard when they know the stakes and can see the target.
- Strip out meaningless friction.
- Audit where energy is going. Ask your team, “What part of this work feels like it adds no value?”
- Test recurring tasks and approvals against the challenge. If they don’t move it forward, cut them.
- Shorten the path to progress. Remove steps that exist only for appearances or control.
- Protect your team from noise above them. Filter shifting priorities into one or two that truly matter.
- Equip people for the struggle. Make sure they have the tools, information, and authority to focus on the real problem. Time and energy should go into solving, not chasing resources or permission.
- Frame hard work as confidence. When you give someone a tough assignment, say what it really means: “I trust you. I believe you can handle this. This matters.” People rise to hard problems when they feel believed in.
The Point
I have a saying:
Life is a series of challenges… if we are lucky.
Simply, it means that our lives will be fuller the more challenges we face.
Challenges make us valuable. If everything worked smoothly, our ideas and effort would not be needed.
Getting new challenges is not punishment. It is a sign of confidence. It means someone believes we can carry weight that matters.
Most importantly, facing challenges fuels us. Victories do not just remove pressure. They create energy.
As leaders, our role is not to take away challenges.
Our role is to make sure our teams are facing the right ones.
- The kind that stretch.
- The kind with meaning.
- The kind that move us forward.
Because without them, life and leadership are not utopia.
They are emptiness.
