Why Leaders Set Themselves Up to Fail With Unrealistic Goals

"Ambition is oxygen for business. It gives teams a sense of possibility and leaders a reason to press forward in uncertainty. But like oxygen, too much can suffocate. When goals stretch so far beyond reality, they stop fueling progress and start eroding it. The intention is noble-set the bar high, inspire belief, force innovation. Yet what often follows isn't boldness but quiet disillusionment. People lose faith in themselves, in the team, in the vision."

"Our business culture is obsessed with scale. Go big or go home.10x thinking.Moonshots. These phrases ring through boardrooms, accelerators, and leadership seminars. The belief underneath is simple: the larger the goal, the larger the outcome. But psychology tells a different story. Research on goal-setting theory shows that when goals are too far out of reach, motivation collapses. Instead of striving harder, people disengage. The very size of the goal signals its impossibility."

Ambition fuels possibility and motivates leaders, but excessive ambition suffocates progress. Goals that stretch far beyond reality stop fueling progress and erode momentum. Noble intentions—setting high bars, inspiring belief, forcing innovation—often produce quiet disillusionment rather than boldness. When organizations prioritize scale and moonshot thinking, unreachable goals signal impossibility and collapse motivation. Unrealistic targets can mask structural unsustainability, as in WeWork, and lead teams to lose self-belief. Beyond missed performance and stalled projects, chronic pursuit of impossible goals causes psychological damage: doubt, loss of trust, and diminished belief in the team's ability to progress. Leaders misplace ambition when they ignore these consequences.

Read at Business Matters