I Stopped Waiting to Be Asked

Four years into a leadership team, and I still hadn’t figured out the one thing everyone actually wanted from me.

The role came with real responsibility, leading parts of the program, and an open invitation for feedback on how I led.

I thought I was good at it. Fair. Compassionate. Collaborative.

That was the problem.

I learned I was leaving people confused, frustrated, and uninspired.

I thought building consensus before making a decision was the responsible thing to do. I thought asking permission before taking over an exercise was polite. I thought keeping track of who’d had their turn leading was fair.

Turns out, people didn’t want any of that.

They wanted me to make the decision. Stop asking. Trust my own instincts, and if I believed what I had to offer was valuable, add it, without checking first whether it was okay.

They wanted me to be confident.

I thought being a good leader meant being likeable, agreeable. The consensus-building, the asking, the careful fairness, none of it read as respect the way I meant it to. It read as someone who didn’t trust themselves enough to lead.

Where are you doing this? Where do you soften a decision into a question because it feels more collaborative, when what the room actually needs is for you to just decide?

In your corner,

Allison