I watched something shift in a leader recently. It wasn’t dramatic. It was the quiet kind of shift you almost miss if you aren’t paying attention to the right things. We were in a session where a recurring pattern had finally become too loud to ignore.
A few years ago, I found myself in a friendship that had developed a low hum of friction I couldn’t quite name. We were both building something. Both driven. The kind of women who show up fully and expect the same from themselves in every room they enter.
I woke up this past weekend to three separate pieces of difficult news. Three people I care about are looking at something hard. Each of them is sitting with a situation that has no clean resolution in sight. I made my coffee and read the messages again.
I sat with two founders recently, and you could actually feel the temperature change depending on who was speaking. One was energized. He’d just fumbled a hiring decision that cost the firm time, money, and a decent chunk of goodwill.