There was a season in my leadership where everything was hard at once.
We had grown too fast. Too many promotions, too many new hires, not enough clarity about who owned what, all while the projects were demanding, the clients were harder, and the deadlines weren’t moving for any of it. The conditions were set up for things to go wrong.
And they did. In more than one direction.
I want to tell you about two of those moments. Not because I handled them well, I didn’t always, but because what I learned from them changed how I think about what it actually means to lead people when things are hard.
The moment I froze
Two people on my team were presenting a proposal to someone above us. They had worked hard on it. They believed in what they were putting forward. But the picture wasn’t clear to this person.
They got frustrated. Not quietly. And I froze.
I didn’t leave. I didn’t say anything wrong. But I didn’t say what I should have said either. I couldn’t find the words to step in, to redirect the conversation, to soften the landing for the two people sitting across from me. I just went quiet while they absorbed it.
After the meeting, I went back to them. I didn’t make a speech about it or over-explain myself. I just told them I should have stepped in, and I hadn’t.
What I wish I had understood in that moment, and what I’ve been learning ever since, is that they didn’t need me to have redirected the conversation perfectly. They needed to know that what happened to them registered with me. That I saw it. That it wasn’t okay.
People need to feel where they are before they can move anywhere else.
As soon as the conversation ended, I talked with them together about what had happened. They were understandably frustrated and a little upset, but they took it in stride. I apologized for freezing. Once they felt they had said what they needed to, we came up with a solution that would be better for everyone in the long run.
The moment I stepped back
A few months into the same season, two of my direct reports were experiencing some tension and conflict. One wasn’t aware of how they were coming across. The other felt disrespected.
I did what I thought a good leader did. I listened to both of them separately. I worked with HR to think through solutions. I went back to the person who felt dismissed, and we talked through what she needed, what would help, and what the path forward might look like. Then I offered to bring in HR for additional support and perspective.
HR’s advice surprised me.
Don’t join the conversation. Let them work it out as adults.
Everything in me wanted to be in the room. To manage it. To make sure it went the way I hoped. I had done the work, had the plan, and knew what I wanted the outcome to be.
I stepped back instead.
They worked it out. Once they actually talked to each other, really talked, without me in the middle, they understood each other’s communication styles in a way that the separate conversations hadn’t produced. There were no more issues.
What I learned wasn’t about the outcome. It was about my instinct to be present for every resolution. Sometimes, standing up for your team means doing the behind-the-scenes work so they can do the work themselves. That’s still leadership. It just doesn’t look the way you expect it to.
What both moments had in common
Two situations. Two completely different responses, one where I needed to speak and couldn’t, and one where stepping back was exactly right. What they had in common was this: in both cases, the people involved needed to feel seen and heard before anything else could happen.
Nobody warned me that leading under stress isn’t about holding it together. It’s not about projecting calm, having the right answer, or staying composed when everything is on fire.
It’s about treating people as people first, not as problems to manage or situations to resolve.
It’s about sitting with someone in what’s hard without rushing them toward the lesson.
It’s about owning it when you fell short, not as a performance, not as an overlong apology, but as a simple acknowledgment that what happened to them mattered to you.
It’s about knowing the difference between when your presence helps and when it gets in the way.
The thing I want to say to any leader in a hard season
You don’t have to get it right every time. You won’t. The freeze will happen. The moment where you should have spoken and didn’t — it’ll come, probably more than once. The instinct to fix before you’ve listened will win sometimes, even when you know better.
What matters is what you do after.
Go back. Ask how they’re doing and mean it. Sit in the hard thing with them before you try to move through it. Don’t rush to the takeaway before the feeling has been named.
Sometimes things are just hard. And saying that out loud, without a lesson attached, without a resolution ready, is often the most honest and useful thing a leader can offer.
That’s where the work actually begins.
Nobody Warned Me is a series about the real experience of leading people — honestly, specifically, and without the tidy resolution bow. New posts every two weeks.
If this resonated, the full series lives at radiantcatalyst.com