There’s a particular kind of dread that settles in before a meeting that nobody asked for. You can feel it in the hallway — the slightly slower pace, the coffee cups held a little longer than necessary, the eyes that don’t quite meet yours. Everybody knows this gathering is going to be uncomfortable, and nobody is pretending otherwise.
I’ve called a few of those meetings over the years. I’ve sat in more than a few of them, too. And I’ve noticed something worth sitting with: the quality of your leadership doesn’t show up much in the easy conversations. It shows up in these ones.
A few years back, I had to address something that had quietly festered in a group I was leading — a pattern of behavior that everyone had noticed and nobody had named. I had let it go longer than I should have, telling myself I was being patient, giving it time, waiting for the right moment. The truth, which I eventually had to admit, is that I was avoiding the discomfort.
When I finally called the meeting, I went in with a clear head but a genuinely humble posture. Not falsely humble — not the kind where you perform contrition while secretly waiting to be vindicated — but actually open to hearing things that might not be easy. I said what needed to be said. I listened without interrupting. I stayed in the room when part of me wanted to wrap it up and leave.
It didn’t go perfectly. These things never do. But something shifted. The air cleared just enough to breathe.
What I’ve come to believe is that leadership has a lot to do with your tolerance for unresolved tension. Not your ability to eliminate it — tension is part of any living community — but your willingness to sit in it without flinching, without rushing to fix it before it’s been fully heard.
The leaders I most admire share this quality. They don’t love conflict — I’m suspicious of anyone who does — but they don’t flee from it either. They treat a hard conversation as something worth having, even when it costs them something.
The meeting nobody wanted eventually ends. People go back to their days. Sometimes the relationship is stronger for it. Sometimes it just survives. Either way, you learn something about yourself in that room that you wouldn’t learn anywhere more comfortable.
I think that’s the point.