The Paradox Brilliant Leaders Get Right

It’s a universal truth: Every system, by its very design, creates incentives that profoundly shape how people act.

In the end, people rarely do what’s right or what works best—they do what’s rewarded.

Seth Godin illustrates this perfectly: ‘The healthcare system in the US is not a healthcare system. It’s a treatment system. Because everyone in the system gets rewarded for giving treatments. Not for making you healthy.’ ¹

It’s the same logic that applies to every business: what gets measured and rewarded becomes the norm—even if it leads away from the original goal.

If your bonus depends on short-term revenue, you’ll chase sales.

If promotions depend on playing politics, people will protect turf, not innovate.

If leaders praise ‘innovation’ but punish mistakes, no one will experiment.

Over time, the entire system optimizes around what’s rewarded.

So even when a company claims to value growth, innovation, or culture, the actual behavior is shaped by incentive design.

Brilliant leaders — the ones who build successful, happy teams — are not only aware of these incentives, they redesign them.

They reward learning, not perfection. They reward collaboration, not internal competition. They reward long-term value, not quarterly optics.

Thanks for reading! The journal prompt of today:

‘In your own work or life, when have you followed rules or habits because they were rewarded, even though they didn’t get the results you wanted?’ 

Please let me know in the comments.

Footnote:

• Seth Godin in the Tim Ferriss Show, edition ‘Seth Godin—This is strategy’. 30th minute. Click the link to watch.