Don't Put It All on Your Shoulders
The instinct in The Struggle is to hide the worst problems. You feel the burdens are yours alone, that nobody else can carry them, and that sharing them would crater morale. Horowitz says the opposite: don't put it all on your shoulders. It is easy to think the people you lead would be demoralized by the truth, but the bigger danger is you cracking under a load no one person can carry.
Share the burden, even if you don't get answers back. The minds of your smartest people are wasted on problems you never show them.
His proof is Opsware. When the company kept losing deals to a competitor, he didn't quietly absorb it. He put the problem in front of the whole company and said plainly that they were getting killed and would die if they didn't fix it. Nobody panicked. They built a product that won the market.
“Share every burden you can. Get the maximum number of brains on the problems.”
Key idea
Hiding the worst problems wastes your best minds and crushes you alone. Put the real problem in front of the team; they can handle more truth than you fear.