It’s Humpday!

WEDNESDAY - August 12, 2026

HUMPDAY

Weekly Insight & Inspiration for Purposeful Leaders

THIS WEEK’S FOCUS

The Art of Disappointing Well

Why the strongest leaders don’t try to meet every expectation - and how to say no in a way that protects trust, relationships, and your career.

Every yes is a no to something (and someone) else. The leader who tries never to disappoint anyone ends up failing everyone, including themselves.

It was a conversation I will never forget. Chad and I had been dating for just over a year and marriage had come up a time or two in conversation. I was sure a proposal was to happen any day now! The weekend was approaching and he let me know he was going to come over on Friday and he “had dinner covered”. When Friday came, he arrived a little early (in his world early is on time and on time is late!) and showed up with flowers. “Ooooh - this could be the evening” I thought as the butterflies went crazy in my stomach. After he prepared a wonderful chicken marsala dinner, he sat me on the couch and said, “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about”. Chad proceeded to tell me how much he loved me and that he very much wanted a future with me but there was something he needed to be sure I understood first. At the time, Chad was an active duty officer in the Air Force. His job was a demanding one. One that regularly required him to drop everything and respond at a moment’s notice. One that required long days of intensive training. One that required him to be gone for sometimes years at a time. “You will always be first in my heart,” he said “but you will always feel second in my life. Can you live with that?”

The Myth of the Leader Who Never Lets Anyone Down

If you lead in healthcare, you already know that pull. Staff need coverage, guidance, and a listening ear. Patients and families need answers, comfort, and advocacy. Physicians need responsiveness now. Administration needs metrics, budgets, and results delivered on time. And somewhere underneath all of that, your own family is waiting for you to walk through the door - present, not just physically home.

Early in a career, many leaders quietly adopt a belief that sounds noble but is actually a trap: I can meet everyone’s expectations if I just work hard enough, care enough, sacrifice enough. It feels like devotion. It is actually a setup for failure, because it is mathematically impossible. There are only so many hours, so much energy, and so much of you to go around.

Disappointing people is not a leadership failure. It is a leadership certainty. The real skill is not avoiding it - it’s doing it well.

What Overpromising Really Costs

It is tempting to think that saying yes to everyone protects your relationships and your reputation. In practice, it does the opposite. When you commit to more than you can deliver, something eventually gives - the quality of the work, the timeline, your own well-being, or your word.

A leader who is unreliable because he/she is overcommitted loses more trust over time than a leader who is occasionally and thoughtfully unavailable. Your team, your peers and your boss are not actually asking you to be limitless. They are asking you to be honest and dependable within real limits - and to tell them clearly when something isn’t possible, rather than letting them find out too late.

Choosing Whose Expectations You Meet

Not every request carries equal weight, and treating them as if they do is what leads to burnout and diluted impact. When you’re weighing competing demands, a few questions can help you triage with clarity instead of guilt:

What happens to safety or quality if I say not to this?
Who is depending on this, and is there someone else - or another path - that can meet this need?
Does this align with our department’s or organization’s actual priorities, or does it just feel urgent right now?
What am I implicitly saying no to if I say yes to this?

Prioritizing is not the same as playing favorites. It is a discipline. The leaders who do it well are not the ones who please the most people - they are the ones who can explain, clearly and consistently, whey they chose what they chose.

The Delicate Art of Disappointing Up

Telling your boss you can’t deliver something - or won’t deliver it in the way they envisioned - is one of the hardest conversations in leadership. It can feel like a threat to your credibility, or even your job security. But the leaders who earn the most trust from their own leadership are rarely the ones who never push back. They are the ones who push back thoughtfully and with clarity.

When Work and Family Collide

For all leaders, this tension can cut the deepest. Shift coverage, mandatory overtime, a late-breaking crisis - these events don’t check the calendar to be sure and avoid piano recitals, anniversaries or birthday parties. Disappointing your team or your organization is hard. Disappointing your family can feel unbearable.

There is no formula that removes the pain of that trade-off. But there is a difference between a decision made reactively, out of guilt or obligation, and one made deliberately, according to your own stated values. Decide in advance - before you are in the moment - what your non-negotiables are and what warrants genuine flexibility. When a decision is discussed before-hand and made based on vales, it costs less than a reactive one. It’s one you can stand behind.

3 PRACTICES FOR DISAPPOINTING WELL

Lead with the why, not just the no. People can accept a limit far more easily than they can accept a mystery. Explain the reasoning honestly behind your decision, rather than issuing a naked decline.
Offer an alternative when you can. “I can’t do X, but here’s what I can do” preserves the relationship and shows you’re still invested in the outcome, even when the original ask isn’t possible.
Say it early. The sooner you deliver a hard truth, the smaller the wound and the more time everyone has to adjust. Delay rarely softens disappointment - it usually compounds it.

A Final Thought

You will not be remembered as the leader who made everyone happy. No one is. You will be remembered as the leader whose word meant something - who told the truth about what was possible, protected what mattered most, and when you had to let people down - you did it in a way the respected them and left them respecting you.

Your job is not to be everything to everyone. Your job is to make the right calls, communicate them with integrity, and protect what matters most - even when that means letting someone down.

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Chad did eventually propose and we are nearing our 30th year of marriage. It hasn’t always been easy - three kids, several countries, and lots and lots of deployments - but I can say without a doubt that the time my husband spent to say it early and lead with the why is a big part of why we’re still very happily married today. He has missed more birthdays, holidays and anniversaries than he has been home for. He even missed two of our kids’ high school graduations. But I’ve never doubted where his heart lives. Every time the US Air Force took him away it was disappointing but because all those years ago, he took the time to be clear and honest with me made me proud to support his service to our country. I wouldn’t change a thing!

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This week, notice one moment where you’re tempted to overpromise just to avoid discomfort. Pause. Ask yourself what a clear, honest, well communicated “no” would sound like instead.

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I’d love to hear from you. Please reach out and share if you found this insight helpful, if you’d like to talk about it more, or if there’s a topic you’d like to see in a future Humpday. Stacie@LumisLeadership.com

~ Stacie

The “Humpday” was an e-mail originally created by a great leader and mentor - Marc Strode. He used the Humpday to bring insight and inspiration to his team every week. With his permission and at his request to Keep the Spirit - the Humpday lives on. Marc, thank you for being a leader worth following. Despite your love for camels, you truly are the GOAT!