Jeremy Bradley-Silverio Donato is a writer and the COO at Zama.
Hanya Yanagihara’s devastating novel “A Little Life” is rarely discussed in business contexts. This 800-page opus follows four friends over decades, centering on Jude St. Francis, a brilliant lawyer whose childhood trauma haunts his adult life despite professional success and loving relationships.
While the novel explores themes of suffering and human connection rather than corporate strategy, my recent reading revealed surprising parallels to effective leadership. Here are the leadership insights I gleaned from this powerful work of fiction.
The False Divide Between Professional And Personal
For much of “A Little Life,” Jude maintains an impeccable professional facade while privately battling demons. His colleagues see only his legal brilliance, unaware of his struggles. This divide eventually proves unsustainable.
As leaders, we often perpetuate the myth that professional and personal realms should remain separate. Yet, this novel illustrates how artificial this boundary can be. The most effective leaders recognize that employees bring different aspects of themselves to work, whether acknowledged or not.
This doesn’t mean invading privacy or demanding personal disclosures. Rather, it means creating environments where people can bring authentic versions of themselves to work without fear. When we acknowledge that personal circumstances affect professional performance, we build more resilient teams.
The Critical Role Of Psychological Safety
Throughout the novel, Jude finds healing only in spaces where he feels psychologically safe—primarily with his adoptive father, Harold, and friend Willem. These relationships provide a rare sanctuary where he needn’t perform or hide.
Google’s Project Aristotle famously identified psychological safety as the primary factor in high-performing teams. “A Little Life” demonstrates this principle through negative examples, such as how the absence of safety can undermine even the most brilliant individuals.
Leaders who foster environments where team members can speak truthfully, admit mistakes and express uncertainty without fear of humiliation create the conditions for innovation and well-being. Safety isn’t soft—it’s strategic.
The Power Of Consistent Support Over Time
The novel spans decades, showing how consistent support from friends and mentors gradually (though incompletely) helps Jude heal. This healing doesn’t happen through dramatic interventions but through reliable presence year after year.
In leadership, we often seek quick fixes and immediate results. However, “A Little Life” reminds us that meaningful change—whether personal transformation or organizational culture-building—requires patience and constancy. The most effective leaders commit to long-term development of their people, understanding that growth happens incrementally over time.
When leaders demonstrate they’re in it for the long haul, team members can focus on genuine growth rather than short-term impression management.
Recognizing Invisible Battles
One of the novel’s most powerful aspects is how it reveals the gap between Jude’s external success and internal reality. His colleagues see his achievements but not his struggles.
Similarly, leaders often evaluate employees solely on visible metrics, while remaining oblivious to unseen challenges. The high performer who always delivers may also be battling burnout. The quiet team member might be wrestling with impostor syndrome rather than lacking engagement.
Effective leaders develop the emotional intelligence to look beyond surface performance, attuning themselves to the unspoken realities that impact their teams. They create conditions where asking for help becomes a sign of strength, not weakness.
The Limits Of Individual Achievement
Despite Jude’s extraordinary professional success—becoming a renowned litigator and partner at a prestigious firm—the novel shows that individual achievement alone cannot heal deeper wounds or provide fulfillment.
In business culture, we often overemphasize individual accomplishment while undervaluing connection and community. “A Little Life” serves as a powerful corrective, demonstrating that success divorced from meaningful relationships ultimately proves hollow.
The best leaders understand that organizational achievement flows from human connection. They prioritize relationship-building and community alongside individual performance metrics.
Learning To Accept Help
Perhaps the most poignant lesson from “A Little Life” is how excruciatingly difficult Jude finds it to accept help, even from those who love him most. His self-sufficiency becomes self-sabotage, preventing healing that might have been possible.
Leaders too often model self-reliance while neglecting to demonstrate the equally important skill of receiving support. Normalizing help-seeking behavior—whether asking for feedback, delegating appropriately or acknowledging limitations—creates cultures where interdependence is valued over heroic individualism.
The strongest organizations aren’t those with the most self-sufficient individual contributors but those with the richest networks of mutual support.
Key Takeaways
“A Little Life” was never intended as a business book. Yet, its unflinching examination of human suffering, connection and healing offers profound insights for organizational leaders. By creating psychologically safe environments, providing consistent support, recognizing invisible battles, valuing community over individual achievement and modeling how to accept help, leaders can build more humane and, ultimately, more successful organizations.
The novel reminds us that leadership isn’t fundamentally about strategy or execution but about creating conditions where people can bring their full humanity to work. In doing so, we don’t just build better businesses—we build a better world.
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