We're all just figuring it out

A CEO told her, "Any leader who says they have it figured out is full of it." Here's what she did with that.

I recently recorded a conversation with Amy Quigley, a friend who runs her own business, EQIQ, after years of running marketing for other companies. About forty minutes in, she told me a story I haven't stopped thinking about.

When she was running MITX, Boston's innovation and tech exchange, Amy had a board of about 20 CEOs and COOs from around the city. One of them ran a global consumer brand. Stockholders, board, employees at a scale most people will never sit with.

Amy walked into a smaller executive session one day in the middle of a hard quarter. The business cycle was shifting, and creating new challenges. 

The CEO of the global brand looked at her afterward and said, "Amy, we're all just trying to figure it out. Any leader who tells you they have it figured out is full of it."

She told me she felt the air come out of her lungs. She's carried that line in her pocket for years.

What pretending costs the person performing it

Amy walked into that room doing what good leaders do: projecting steadiness for everyone looking to her.. We've all been trained that the higher up you go, the more polish you owe the room. The bigger the title, the smaller the permission to say "I don't know."

What that CEO gave her was a single sentence that broke the script. He outranked her in scope. He outranked her in pressure. And he was the one telling her he was figuring it out, too.

The cost of pretending is that you carry alone what you could carry with others.

What pretending costs everyone else

There's a second cost, and Amy ran into it from a different angle later in our conversation.

She told me about a 23-year-old on a team she'd inherited. The young woman ran PR. Over lunch, Amy asked her why she'd gotten into PR. The young woman said, "I actually hate writing."

She was doing the job because that's the role she'd been handed. Her previous manager had assembled the team fast and slotted smart people into shapes that didn't fit them. Nobody meant any harm. It just happened fast.

The real cost was the question nobody had time to ask.

Amy asked. She found a connector and an investigator wearing a writer's title, and rebuilt the role around what she was actually good at. s Years later, that woman runs her own business in that space.

What honest leadership actually looks like

Later in our conversation, Amy described a moment where she'd walked into an exec session presenting a decision already made. Two people on the team jumped in with suggestions she hadn't asked for. A third person, the only other woman in the room, said, "Gentlemen, I think she just told us she has this. Can we move on?"

Amy said she would have stood up and clapped.

I think those three moments are the same moment from different angles.

The CEO who said "we're all figuring it out" gave Amy permission to stop performing certainty.

The young woman over lunch reminded her that the questions you skip cost real careers.

The peer who said "she's got this" protected a room from its own helpful instincts.

What ties them together is the same posture. Honesty is just the decision to stop performing.

If you've been carrying something this quarter that you've been quietly performing your way through, this is your reminder. The leader two levels above you is also figuring it out. The person on your team who looks fine may be in the wrong role. The peer who interrupts to "help" is sometimes the most generous voice in the room, and sometimes the one who needs to be told that you have this..

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This is part of my Full Picture Leadership series, where I talk with experienced leaders about what really happens in high-stakes moments. You can connect directly with Amy Quigley and me on LinkedIn.

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