The aftermath of standing up

Been thinking all day about that meeting on Thursday where I had to call out Alex for undermining the cultural workshop planning. Not the confrontation itself - that was messy but necessary - but what happened after.

The aftermath of standing up

The weird thing is how quiet it got afterwards. Not uncomfortable quiet, but… respectful quiet? Like the whole dynamic shifted once I stopped trying to smooth everything over and just said what needed saying. Alex apologized properly yesterday, and Sarah mentioned she’d been waiting for someone to address his competitiveness for months.

Processing through writing, like always.

Writing it all out tonight, I keep coming back to this: I spent so much energy trying to keep everyone happy that I forgot my actual job was to keep the project on track. Turns out being a good leader sometimes means being the person willing to have the hard conversation.

Jake brought me coffee an hour ago and said I looked like I was solving world peace. Close - just figuring out that standing up for something doesn’t have to mean tearing someone down. Took me thirty-two years to learn that one.