Growing Forward · Letter No. 4 · August 2026← All letters

Dealing with People Who Frustrate You

If certain people at work reliably frustrate you — a boss, a peer, someone whose personality just grates — you're not imagining it, and you're not alone. Frustration usually has something to teach, if you're willing to ask what it is. Here's what mine taught me about leadership, and about the people who challenge us most.

I've spent more than two decades leading, across two very different industries. I started bagging groceries and spent almost 20 years working my way up — about 14 promotions along the way. I earned my bachelor's degree at 35, my MBA at 40, and moved into healthcare, where I've now led at the executive level for over a decade.

Those years taught me a lot about strategy and operations. But one of the biggest lessons didn't come from a promotion. It came from frustration.

I was a director at the time, not yet in the executive seat. Sales were behind. The whole company was struggling — we were in the middle of layoffs, and my boss was worried she'd lose her own job over it. She pushed me hard. She wasn't interested in explanations, only results, and at one point made it clear: fix it, or leave.

I was giving everything I had. My all wasn't enough. I remember sitting there, tears welling up, genuinely thinking I was about to lose my job, with no idea what to do differently. The frustration had nowhere to go. It just built up inside me.

She wasn't the only one over the years. There have been peers who challenged me, leaders who frustrated me, personalities that felt impossible to work with. If you've spent enough time around people, you've probably felt something similar.

For a long time, I let that frustration consume me. I replayed conversations in my head. I assumed the worst about people's motives. I carried that weight long after everyone else had moved on. The only person it was actually hurting was me.

Eventually, I started asking a different question. Not "why are they acting this way," but "what is this frustration trying to teach me?" Sometimes it was pointing at a boundary I needed to set. Sometimes an insecurity I hadn't dealt with. Sometimes a skill I needed to build, or a conversation I'd been avoiding. And sometimes, it was just a reminder that the other person was carrying something I couldn't see.

Looking back, I don't think she was trying to be hard on me. I think she was scared, and I was the closest place for that fear to land.

One practice has helped me more than almost anything: removing the emotion long enough to focus on the actual problem. Instead of "why are they acting this way," I try to ask, "what are we actually trying to accomplish together, and what's the best path there?" It doesn't solve every conflict. But it changes the conversation.

There's a line often credited to Abraham Lincoln: "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better." Whether he actually said it or not, the idea holds up. The people who frustrate us are usually the people we understand the least. Curiosity takes up the space judgment usually lives in. And grace gets easier once you remember everyone's fighting something you can't see.

Leadership was never about avoiding difficult people. It's about becoming the kind of person who meets frustration with curiosity instead of reaction. That's served me better than any title I've held.

If you know a man who might benefit from reading this today, would you consider sharing this letter with him? Sometimes the right message arrives at exactly the right time.

Jonathan Worrall