u/nytconnectionsmaster

I’m a director at a mid-sized company that recently entered an aggressive growth phase due to PE acquisition.

The simplest way I can describe our current situation is: we are building the infrastructure required to scale while simultaneously scaling.

I believe in the plans and am bought into the vision. In 12-18 months, I see an organization with significantly more structure and resources than we have today.

But the right now of it all has me questioning if I’m capable of leading through this.

The dizzying theme has been: I get direction on a scaling initiative. I spend a week or two creating the plan, documenting, looping in key players etc. Then, like clockwork, I get new information that changes things (“we’ve decided to move up this timeline, we’ve decided you need a new role for X, we’ve decided X is no longer a priority and Y is”), and suddenly I’m rebuilding pieces while still trying to keep everything else moving. In most cases, the new direction genuinely makes sense. But the implementation cost of changing direction is significant.

I have no middle management and a super lean team. When these pivots happen, I’m the person who has to revise, reallocate, re communicate, reprioritize for everyone. No one on my team has scaled a business 5x. No one has more than 10 years of professional experience. For most of us, that entire professional experience has been at this one company. It’s not like I have these strong SMEs or middle managers to take minimal direction and run.

And now I feel like I’m falling into immature leader behavior traps I don’t like.

First, I’m becoming more defensive with my leaders. When they identify another opportunity or ask “what if we did X?”, instead of being open, my brain immediately goes to “with what people and what time?” I don’t want to come across as stubborn or whiny, or be perceived as incapable of figuring it out. And then I get concerned that I truly, am, unable to figure it out.

Second, I’m worried my team can see me becoming frazzled. I’m normally super calm, cool and collected, able to protect our deliverables, and reinforce simple prioritization frameworks the team operates well under. Right now, I’m changing direction and priorities frequently, realizing after the fact that I could have handled something differently, and generally not feeling as in control. The imposter syndrome now is real.

I know leading through change is uncomfortable. I expected a level of chaos. But none of that really prepared me for the actual lived experience. I know the next 12 months will be uncomfortable. I just want to get better at leading through this without feeling like I’m totally unqualified and stressed. Any advice is much appreciated.

PE came in and restructured us. I went from Executive Director of 3 key departments to Director of one of those departments with 2 lateral new Directors over the other 2 and an SVP over all 3 of us.

I get it from a business perspective. Keeping me as a layer and adding the SVP would be redundant. Promoting me as SVP would be risky as I’m a home grown leader who hasn’t scaled functions rapidly to the size they want us to be.

I’m gutted. I’m losing all of my professional momentum in the executive layer. I spent a long time growing from leading 1 department and showed them I could lead all 3. Blew goals out of the water for 2 years. Now im back over the first department I spent years showing them I was more than. I built a scaling plan. But it didn’t matter. PE just wanted someone with a proven track record externally instead of making a bet on me.

Again. I get the business rationale. But right now im supposed to just… be engaged? Show up with a smile? I am humiliated and gutted. I logged on today and was just like “how the f do I move forward” knowing in a few months everything I’ve built gets handed off to other people. I get kicked out of strategic rooms that really energized and fulfilled me. How does your ego get over this? I’m mortified of changing my LinkedIn, having my team and peers find out, and no longer getting to develop the executive skillsets.

Yes, I’m actively applying. The job market sucks. I don’t know if there’s a realistic exit for me right now. I need advice on how I just get through every day without feeling sick to my stomach.

My sweet 11 year old Great Dane mix is very very routine oriented in her late years. We suspect maybe early CCD, but it’s very specific.

Around sunset, she starts whining at us and standing by the door. We first placate with dinner, then some treats in a sniff mat, then potty.

At this point, we are usually in the living room watching TV and winding down. She does not relent until we all go to the bedroom. Then she plops in her bed and passes out. Symptoms over. So yes, there are some CCD-like behaviors, but also it’s quite clear she’s got a motive: trying to get us to go to bed. Then she’s fine.

Has anyone dealt with this? What do you do? We’ve caved and just gone into bed really early, and are contemplating putting a TV in our room. We have gabapentin but again, this is a clear “we know why she’s agitated” and I don’t want to just drug her every night. CBD and melatonin haven’t done anything for her. Ignoring the behavior is possible but it’s very difficult for us to wind down and chill when she’s in our faces whining and groaning. Thanks in advance!

11y/o female Great Dane Mix (50% GD, 50% mutt) has lump on abdomen. Eating, drinking, bowel habits normal. Very active and otherwise healthy dog.

She has a lot of lipomas. This lump felt bigger and harder. FNA of lump was inconclusive. Did a tissue biopsy during dental cleaning. Results are as follows:

Evaluation of Biopsy Samples: "The examined sections contain no evidence of a pathologic process. The specimens consist of histologically normal skeletal muscle and adipose tissue."

Vet said this is “confusing but not alarming”. Next steps are either: get a surgeon involved and do CT scans to see what’s underneath the lump (this would be examining her chest wall area) or monitoring it, if it grows or her behavior/habits change, then move to CT.

My gut says to monitor, although if there is something cancerous underneath, is it better to know that and know treatment options now?

My team works remote. I have a full time manager of a function who I inherited.

There are caregiving responsibilities and personal/health-related issues that clearly are impacting consistency, responsiveness, availability, and leadership presence in their role. I naively began my relationship with this person thinking this was a “hard season” for them. I performance managed with that context, definitely a bit more gentle than I would be otherwise.

After escalating some reliability concerns to my manager a few months ago, I find out this person has a long, documented history of all these concerning behaviors that I was never told. I was very frustrated. Had I known this was a pattern and not a season, I would have addressed things differently, and likely used past situations to frame and direct current outcomes.

Annoying, but whatever. I then begin to take more formal approaches to performance management.

In the last 4 months we’ve had:

- 1 annual review acknowledging that growth areas outlined last year from my predecessor did not improve YoY (which was reflected in the merit raise)

- 1 firm reset on “if you are not able to be fully present, you need to take sick time or PTO”

- 1 “document everything you do all day” month-long program where we met daily and discussed opportunities for workflow improvement and leadership initiative to better develop that skillset

That last one was a few weeks ago. Nothing has changed, and their personal life escalated. Right now they are taking some time off. I know deep down there has to be a direct conversation upon their return.

I know the script is always “talk about how they’re not meeting expectations, not what’s going on personally”. But if I do that, i know the excuse will be about what’s going on personally. Where do I go from there? How do you deliver that kind of feedback when someone’s barely holding their life together?