A few years ago, someone I respected made a decision that broke my heart a little.
One of his team members made a mistake. Not a catastrophic one — the kind that happens when a human being is learning, stretching, figuring things out. When my colleague brought it up in a group of fellow business owners, the response was immediate and unanimous:
“Just let them go.”
No curiosity. No questions. No “what’s actually going on here?” Just — done. Next.
He took their advice. And I remember sitting with that feeling, turning it over.
That memory surfaced recently when Stephanie went through something similar -and made a different decision. I realize now that what underlies the ‘business advice’ that both my colleague and Stephane were given, isn’t just a business decision. It’s a worldview. One that says: if the result isn’t right, the person isn’t worth the process.
That worldview is everywhere. And it’s costing us more than we realize.
The Research That Changes Everything
Dr. Carol Dweck spent years studying how people respond to challenge, failure, and growth. Her findings are deceptively simple — and quietly revolutionary.
In one study, she divided children into two groups. The first group was graded purely on outcomes: right answers, wrong answers, full stop. The second group was graded on their process — how they approached the problem, what they tried, how they thought it through.
At first, both groups performed similarly. Then, as the problems got harder, something fascinating happened.
The outcome-focused kids got anxious. They started cheating. They avoided harder problems. Their world got smaller as the stakes got higher.
The process-focused kids? They got curious. More engaged. More excited. The harder the problem, the more alive they became. Their world got larger and more engaging.
The most striking thing about this: we were all those kids once. And most of us were trained to be in the first group.
The Pattern You Probably Recognize
Think about how this plays out in your own life.
In business, it looks like dismissing a team member the moment they underperform — instead of looking at the process that’s in place, or asking: Are they in the right role? Is there something else they might have needed? What is really going on?
In relationships, it looks like deciding something is broken when it gets hard — instead of choosing to ask hard questions like: Is this a pattern in my life? What is this difficulty trying to show me?
In leadership, it looks like measuring your worth by your last quarter’s numbers, your last launch, your last win — instead of asking: Am I growing? Am I becoming someone worth following?
The outcome-only mindset doesn’t just affect performance. It creates a culture of disposability.
And when everything is disposable — team members, relationships, ideas that didn’t land perfectly the first time — two things happen.
- People around you start quietly asking themselves: When is it my turn to be thrown out?
- You second guess the world and live your life as though you’ll be tossed to the curb any moment.
That doesn’t foster excellence. That fosters fear.
“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?”
— Carol Dweck
What Stephanie Did Instead
When Stephanie faced that situation with her team member, she didn’t take the “just let them go” advice. She got curious.
She asked: What did I miss? Did I assign them work that was actually mine to do? Where are their real strengths, and am I creating space for those to flourish?
She took accountability. Not in a self-flagellating way — in a genuinely growth-oriented way. The kind that says: I’m in this process too. I’m not above it.
That’s soulful leadership. 🙌 And it’s rarer than it should be.
The Bottom Line
Results matter. We can’t pretend they don’t.
And results are the output of a process. If you only ever focus on the output, you never get to understand — or improve — what’s actually creating it.
The leaders I most admire aren’t the ones with the cleanest track records. They’re the ones who stayed curious when things got hard. Who stood for people over numbers. Who asked better questions instead of making faster judgments. Who understood that how you get somewhere matters just as much as whether you arrive.
So are my questions for you this week:
👉🏻 Where in your life are you grading yourself — or someone else — only on the outcome?
👉🏻 And what would change if you got just a little more curious about the process?
You might be surprised by what you find.
Let me know.
Want more?
Listen to Episode 206 of The Soulful Leader Podcast: “You’re Not Behind — You’re Playing the Wrong Game” wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube.
Would you like help becoming a more soulful leader?
Check out our Inner Mastery Series.
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When you care for yourself,
your mind, your body, your peace,
success starts flowing naturally.