“I was the brilliant person who became the boss everyone dreaded, and I was oblivious to it until the day they fired me and called me a tyrant. The fact that you see that trap already puts you ahead of where I was. Now the work is noticing what you do when pressure hits, because that is what your team will feel.”
“Watched people lose themselves the moment they got authority, then blamed pressure for the change. I refused to let that be me, so I built around a simple fact: you can't lead people in a way you'd never want to be led.”
“I became a boss at Deloitte before I knew how to be one, and the people I admired most were the ones who made everyone around them better, not the ones with the sharpest critiques. If you want your team to follow you, build a team where they give feedback to each other, hold each other accountable, and lift each other up: your job is to protect that culture, not be the hero in it.”
“I struggled in my first few months as a Team Lead myself—what made me a good engineer didn't translate. The ones who end up dreaded usually do two things: they can't let go of control, and they shield the team from challenges instead of working through them together. When people feel like they're part of the solution, they become invested in it.”
“The thing those brilliant people rarely change is the style that got them promoted—and most teams can feel it the moment they land the role. You've got to drop the self-promotion tactics now; your people aren't going to respect someone still playing for the next job when they're counting on you to play for them.”
“I spent years being the kind of boss people quietly dread, and even after I changed I couldn't undo the hurt. Your instinct to avoid that path matters more than wanting to get it right the first time, so listen more than you talk and admit when you're wrong.”
“Your gut is already protecting you—hold it. The trap those brilliant people fell into is confusing control with leadership, and it burns out anyone working for them because nobody actually chooses to give their best to a tyrant.”
“Look, the fact that you're thinking about this ahead of time puts you ahead. Most people get given the role and don't give it a second thought until something goes wrong.”
“The difference between the leaders you fear becoming and the one you want to be is this: they needed people to make them look good, and they protected that need by controlling everything. You're refusing that trade because you saw it hollow them out, even as they got promoted. What I've learned is that the best leaders don't hold tighter—they hand things over and let their people become brilliant.”