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One Lesson I Learned By Being a Terrible Boss
Early in my career, I failed big time as a leader because I made an all-too-common mistake.
When I was a newer leader, I was so focused on being right that I missed opportunities to get it right.
Nearly two decades ago, I was promoted to a supervisory role, and I didn’t initially thrive. I lacked experience, but more challenging than what I lacked in experience was what I was subconsciously doing to myself.
I was an outlier among other leaders I worked with due to my intersecting identities; as a woman, a mixed-race person of color, and someone without a college degree, and belonging to a younger generation than my colleagues, I felt intense pressure to be perfect because — at the time — there was no one else like me doing what I was doing at my place of work. I was telling myself that I could not make any mistakes, and I was so focused on my own performance and aptitude that I was failing as a leader. I’ve long grappled with limiting beliefs (I’m not going to call this Impostor Syndrome anymore, and if you’re not sure why, read this). My preoccupation with how I was being perceived was holding me back from my real potential to lead and transform my team.
