I Got It Wrong. That’s When I Started Leading Right.
One misstep with my team taught me more about real leadership than any successful launch ever could.
Jan 20, 2025
I had good intentions. That’s the part I keep coming back to. I wasn’t trying to control the process or shut anyone down. I thought I was helping. I thought I was making space for the team to move faster, think clearer, stay focused.
But I was wrong.
We were in the early stages of a high-pressure project. Big expectations, lots of visibility, and a real sense of urgency. Everyone was moving fast. Decisions needed to be made. And I noticed we were circling the same conversations again and again. So I stepped in.
I reframed the brief. I mapped out some possible directions. I cleaned up our board. And I did it all without really asking the team what they needed.
That’s where I slipped.
In my head, I was being proactive — a good lead, clearing the fog. But from the outside, I was steering without alignment. Shaping direction without bringing people with me. I wasn’t just moving fast — I was moving ahead. And it showed.
One of my teammates reached out privately and said something that stuck: “It feels like you’re solving for us before we’ve had a chance to solve together.”
That landed hard.
I sat with it for a while. And then I asked for time in our next sync to talk about it. No slides, no explanations. Just me owning it. I told them what I was trying to do, how it probably came across, and that I wanted to reset — with them, not for them.
It changed everything.
The dynamic shifted. People opened up. We started building shared context again. The tension I didn’t even fully realize I had caused started to ease. And we moved forward — slower, maybe, but better.
That moment taught me something I didn’t fully understand before: leadership isn’t about having the answers early. It’s about asking the right questions at the right time — and knowing when to get out of the way.
I still care about clarity and momentum. But I care even more about trust. And now I know that the fastest way to lose it is by trying to lead without listening.
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