Integrating Leadership Development with Business Strategy (03/31/26)

March 31, 2026

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Is Your Work Joyless?

The Wall Street Journal framed it differently in their article yesterday, How Working in America Became So Joyless. They are writing about a trend; I’m asking a pointed question.

And if you are reading this as a leader, I’m not just asking it of you, I am urging you to consider how your team would answer.

Is your work joyless?

Or is there less joy than there once was?

Or are you having any fun at work?

The Journal article points to cost-cutting (offices charging for coffee as an example), worry about the effects of AI, and the growing size of teams (and spans of control for leaders) as the joy-stealers.

While interesting, what matters is what is happening in your organization and on your team.

Bruce Daisley (who’s been my guest on the Remarkable Leadership Podcast), was quoted, “Culture always outperforms every other variable in terms of what we want from the job. We typically join the job for pay, and we leave because the culture’s bad.”

Bruce is right. While cost-cutting, team size and/or AI concerns may be part of your current work experience, it doesn’t mean joylessness is automatic. You and your team still create your culture. You can bring back what you’ve lost. You can find (free!) ways to inject laughter, and fun and even joy into your workplace.

It might feel hard, but when we succeed when things are hard, the rewards are even sweeter and more meaningful.

I urge you to put joy on your agenda and into your conversations, and help your team recapture or find more of it in their work.

Integrating Leadership Development with Business Strategy

We know we need leaders to deliver on our business strategies. But most organizations aren’t enabling their leaders to this goal as well as they wish. The traditional approaches organizations take to develop leaders aren’t wrong or misguided, they are just too vague and indirect.

Here are a few alternative approaches to correct inadvertent and unintentional mistakes traditional leadership development processes create.

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