We live in a world where ambition is prized, often at the expense of human well-being. I’ve seen it firsthand—the long hours, the relentless demands, the subtle and not-so-subtle pressures that can weigh heavily on those in high-stakes environments. A senior colleague once joked about my significant weight gain, dismissing it as a symptom of “doing too well” and “being overpaid”. What they didn’t see—or chose not to see—was the stress-laden lifestyle behind it and how their actions allowed that to thrive. I also know several colleagues who have had to pursue therapy for several years to deal with the trauma they experienced. With inputs from Vivek Pradeep Rana , managing partner, Gnothi Seauton .

The recent tragedy involving a young professional at one of the world's top firms forces us to confront a more disturbing reality: unchecked workplace pressure isn’t just a byproduct of success—it can break even the strongest among us, with devastating consequences. This is not a story about one company or person but something which resonates throughout the world. Once synonymous with success and prestige, high-stakes corporate environments have now become battlegrounds where human lives are wagered in the name of productivity and profit.

Everywhere, in Silicon Valley tech hubs, and in the mighty finance cities of London and Tokyo , the non-stop drive is taking its toll on young working professionals. According to the World Health Organization , work-related stress has reached unimaginable proportions. The question we must ask is: why do we continue to tolerate this culture? Why do we, as a society, allow our brightest minds to be ground down by a system that values output over well-being?

In boardrooms around the world, leaders are measured by a single metric: profit. Over time, we have learned to celebrate the bottom line while ignoring the lives being trampled into it. The truth is that business entities exist to grow and make money, but we must now confront the deeper question: at what cost? How many lives are ground down in pursuit of corporate success?

This is not a first-time tragedy. It's a symptom of a much more extensive crisis that we have been witnessing spread across the finance, tech, healthcare , and even education sectors. The workplace has increasingly become a battlefield; chronic exhaustion, burnout, and mental health crises have emerged as a product of a system designed to push human beings to their limits.

Too many criticisms of corporate culture occur without a deep understanding of the underlying economic forces. Businesses rest on the soil of profit; if they cannot garner some degree of that, they will not survive. How do you ensure growth doesn't come at the expense of the people who drive it? How do you protect human lives in an ecosystem that prizes output over well-being?

Pressure from all sides: clients want more for less, investors demand results, and competition generates an ever-growing need for efficiency. Effect? Teams are asked to do more, stretch further and keep going at the expense of their health and sanity. It is no longer a question of whether this is so-it happens everywhere. The real question remains: why are we doing this?

The narrative we’ve been sold is that profit and empathy cannot coexist—that to drive success, you must push people harder, faster, further. This is a false dichotomy. The reality is that sustainable success requires both profitability and empathy. We need leaders who understand that people are not just assets on a balance sheet but the foundation of any successful organisation.

Empathy isn’t a weakness. It’s the key to unlocking long-term growth. Leaders who build empathy cultures create environments where people can thrive without sacrificing their mental or physical health. This isn’t about lowering standards or sacrificing performance. It’s about acknowledging human limits and ensuring they are respected, not exploited.

In the face of tragedy, the first instinct is to find someone to blame. Some point to the company, accusing it of failing to safeguard its employees. Others, more quietly, wonder if the individual wasn’t cut out for the high demands of her role. However, such discussions miss the more profound point: Where was the empathy? Where were the leaders who should have seen the warning signs? And where were the colleagues working alongside every day?

Empathy shouldn't be a mysterious, rare commodity in the workplace. It should be at the core of leadership, especially in places where expectations are always high. More often than not, it's put aside as one of those soft skills that do not quite find a home in boardrooms or corner offices.

Let's turn the lens inward for a moment. Did we, in our own way, contribute to the pressures around us? How many of us, in the name of performance, pushed others a little bit too far without considering other people's limits? We need to challenge ourselves because change requires self-awareness.

We are not only victims of this system—we are also, at times, its enforcers. Whether through our silence when we see a colleague struggling or through our own unrealistic expectations, we are complicit. The corporate culture that drives people to the brink is not just perpetuated by policy; people perpetuate it, and that includes each of us.

What does it say about us that we’ve accepted stress, burnout, and mental health crises as inevitable byproducts of success? In accepting these conditions, we are complicit. Every leader and every colleague who turns a blind eye to the signs of exhaustion or distress is part of the problem. And every single one of us who remains silent will have contributed to a culture that values output over people.

We have normalised the extraordinary demands on employees, which in turn has normalised the breakdowns, crises, and, in some cases, tragedies that follow. If we persist in ignoring these warning signs, we will see more lives lost, not to accidents and diseases but to the silent, invisible pressures of modern work culture.

We need a new kind of leadership. One that isn’t driven solely by profit margins or performance metrics but by a recognition of the value of human life. The best leaders understand that sustainable growth is about more than just hitting targets—it’s about building environments where people can excel without sacrificing their health. This means rethinking how we set goals, how we reward success, and how we care for those who work for us.

We must also challenge clients and shareholders to stop devaluing the services they rely on. If a business cannot deliver high-quality work without burning out its people, then the pricing model is wrong, and the demands are unsustainable. Real leadership means making difficult decisions in the short term to protect the long-term health of the company and its people.

We cannot continue to consider human well-being as an afterthought. Profits and people are not enemies. They are interdependent. If we cannot protect our people, we will lose productivity and revenue and the very heart of our businesses. And if we keep sacrificing a few more lives in the name of corporate ambition, then, frankly, what have we gained?

Here is the future moment of reckoning where empathy and humanity will become virtues and needs; the only way forward is to create workspaces that nurture human evolution toward the ability to succeed, thrive, and, most importantly, survive.