The pains of a bad team player
Underlying Ego
When I first laid eyes on her I thought “eh, she seems nice”. Did not think much of her back then. Then we had our first interaction, and she grew a little on me. Then we had our first meeting, and that was when she really left an impression on me.
You are amazing! You have so much potential, you haven’t even started yet! You got this! I will get you there!
Cheerleaders of Life
She is an Executive Coach. A good one? - You might be asking yourself… I do not know, my friend. I was never her client. All I know is that she works only with Latino women. To be fair, she is an coach with credentials (ie. Psychology Degree).
Little by little she won me over. She would tell me how good I was, how much potential I had, how amazing I was. A number of times. Over and over again.
We started a group of Latino women. The idea was to celebrate their potential, help them with strategic tools to be better at the business game, male dominant, here in the US. You see, I was never one of big causes, but this one - feeling the pains of being a Latino woman in the States in the Trump Era -, made me want to invest in it.
When I decide to go into something, I go big. There is no halfway there with me. Either we are on thin together or not. And she loved that about me, how invested I was.
I was in charge of the Marketing and Communications, another friend on Operations and our dear friend ended up with the Leadership - she naturally - or forcefully - took over the reins of our first meeting, where we had a total of 16 Latino women.
Our coach friend can be very inspiring. If you need that “pick me up”, someone to be bossy with you so you can get something done, she is the one for you. Around our third meeting I realized she would tell everyone what she told me, what made me once be mesmerized by her… “You are amazing! You have so much potential, you haven’t even started yet! You got this! I will get you there!” she would say.
I will be honest, at first, I did not really have a problem with it. Then it started to get a little too pushy. And then our friend number 2 (just calling her number 2 for the sake of simplicity here), started challenging her in some relevant points. And she would not be happy with someone else challenging her. Then I started challenging her because I did not really agree with some practices she was implementing.
We were three for the first three months. Before our fifth meeting we became four. Now she had three people disagreeing with her. She would put her foot down and say “I am the expert here! So I am deciding this and that!”. It was no longer a democracy or a co-founding group. It was her group and nobody else’s.
Good leaders are not self-proclaimed, they don’t call themselves leaders.
They have this humble characteristic, they are always happy to help and open to new ideas. It takes a great deal of humility and servitude to become a leader. The higher you go the bigger the number of people you are supporting in their journey.
Good leaders listen to their peers and do what is best for the mission.
Not listening to a more experienced peer in a war zone can get you killed. The same goes for life and business.
There is this saying that is very popular in the start-up world. “If you’re going to fail, fail fast.” - This situation right here was a failure. So I dropped fast. I lost no time in going to the Coach and telling her I was out, that I did not agree with what was happening. And man, how it felt good afterwords. I took a load after my back and now I’m ready to start something new, bigger and more compelling!