Is Leadership Supposed to Make You Happy?

A few weeks ago, Natasha Sodhi, ex-Director of Advisory, Transformation & Technology at PwC, asked me a question that caught me off guard:

It stayed with me, partly because of a decision I had just made.

I recently chose not to apply for the chair of a national volunteer program. During the conversation with the outgoing chair, we talked about the word “sacrifice.”

The reality is, leadership has a cost. Anytime you lead well, you direct your time, energy, and focus toward the work that matters, which means diverting it from other parts of your life. This year, those tradeoffs felt too heavy for me. I saw them as sacrifices.

But in other roles, at other times, that same cost didn’t feel like a sacrifice at all.

I wanted to give my time. I felt lucky to pour my energy into the work. The effort felt meaningful, energizing, even joyful.

Nothing about the work changed. My perspective did.

And that is the answer to her question.

Leadership is not inherently unhappy. But leadership viewed through the lens of sacrifice is.

When a leader sees their role primarily as a sacrifice, the weight becomes the story. The pressure becomes the focus. The job becomes a list of things they are losing out on.

But when a leader sees their role as something they get to give themselves to, the emotional experience shifts.

The challenges are still there. The pressure is still real. But the work carries purpose, not depletion.

Perspective doesn’t erase the load. It changes how we carry it.

This isn't just about your own happiness. It’s about the signal you send to everyone watching you.

When a leader sees their work as a burden, that lens cascades downward. When a leader sees their work as a privilege, that lens cascades downward too.

Cultures reflect the mindsets of the people at the top. You cannot build an energized, happy culture if you are leading from a place of resentment and loss.

So, a question for the leaders out there:
Does the way you view your leadership create a place where happiness is possible for you and for the people following you?

Because the emotional tone you carry becomes the emotional climate others inherit.

For me, I’ve lived on both sides of the spectrum. It wasn’t the workload that dictated where I landed. It was the lens I chose to look through.