[bmon]

This really hits home to me. I worked on a project where I encountered an almost identical situation to the one you described. I stuck my foot down, and insisted we build the objectively better solution. We did, and only much later did I realise the damage I had done to my coworker's morale.

Looking back, I completely regret it. If I had my time again, I would stop after explaining the alternate solution. The time we would have had to spend fixing the problems with the original approach would have been worth it.

I've heard this repeated a lot, but I'm really only just starting to understand: Often the best leaders speak up less, rather than more.