Dear Meeting Room,

It’s strange how leadership sneaks up on you. One day you’re figuring out your own job, the next you’re responsible for someone else. Their success. Their frustrations. The 1:1s. Their Monday moods.

And suddenly, it’s not just about being good at your work. It’s about helping someone else be good at theirs.

One thing I learned quickly was that becoming a leader doesn’t just mean adding “manager” to your title and continuing as before. I used to think things would more or less run on momentum, that if I just worked hard and led by example, the rest would fall into place. But after a while I realized that leadership isn’t something that happens in the background. It requires time, focus, and deliberate effort. You have to pause. You have to listen. You have to make space to coach, support, and be present for your team. You have to actually take time out of your schedule to be a leader, and to help your team achieve their goals and ambitions where it makes sense. I hadn’t thought about that at all before I was in the role. And I realized this too far into the role. If I am being completely honest I think that for the first 6 months or so, I was not a good manager.

I still think about three moments from when I became a leader for the first time. Not big dramatic events. Just small, ordinary scenes that stuck with me.

1. The Interview I Faked My Way Through

I was 25 and thriving in my new role. I started in a sales manager position, where I was responsible for a customer segment the older sales guys didn’t really understand. I had an amazing boss, and even our commercial director and CEO were genuinely down to earth. One day the CEO asked around the office where I was, and my stomach dropped. I thought something was wrong. Turned out he just wanted to chat about football. That’s when I first understood that leadership didn’t have to be intimidating.

That trust eventually led to them accepting my request to expand the team and hiring someone. My first real direct report. A bright, creative woman who turned out to be the perfect fit. I screened the applications and CV’s, which was quite fun to do. Now for the first time, I was on the receiving end of the CV’s. Which in all honesty is a big task. It takes a lot of time, and now I understand why a good CV that gets attention and cuts to the point is extremely important.

But during the interviews? I struggled. I didn’t know how to ask good questions. I had to force myself to be curious and follow up on her answers. HR sat in on the first round, my boss joined the last, and I did my best to learn from them. And I guess it worked out, since I was very satisfied with my new employee. It’s actually funny, because some time later she said that she felt that the interviews were not going well since I was a bit quiet. Though it was the complete opposite.

2. The Days I Overread Her Silence

Once she joined, the real learning began. Not about onboarding or planning. About my own inner noise. I remember how much I read into her moods. If she was quiet, I’d worry. Did I do something wrong? Was she unhappy? Did I let her down?

I cared. Maybe too much.

Eventually I realized that caring is not the problem. What matters is what you do with that caring. It’s not my job to manage someone’s emotions. But it is my job to check in, to offer a safe and solid work environment, and to give my team what they need to do great work. That’s the line. I can’t dwell on every quiet moment or try to fix every dip in energy. Sometimes people are just tired or thinking. I learned to ask once, to listen, and then let go.

3. The Moment I Realized I Don’t Need to Know Everything

At some point I looked around and saw that I was managing people with more experience than I had years alive. I couldn’t out-skill them, and I didn’t need to. For a while, that was hard to accept. I felt pressure to prove myself, to always have the right answers or the smartest questions. But eventually I learned that trying to be the most capable person in every room is not leadership. It’s insecurity in disguise.

So I changed my mindset. I stopped obsessing over expertise and started thinking about clarity. I didn’t have to be the best at everything. I had to create the best conditions for others to do great work. That meant setting a direction and holding it steady. It meant protecting time, removing blockers, making sure people felt heard, and giving them space to work — really work — without friction.

It also meant knowing when to step back. Some of my team members had decades of experience. I couldn’t teach them anything they didn’t already know. But I could ask the right questions. I could connect dots across projects. I could take responsibility when things got messy and give credit when things went well.

Most importantly, I could listen. Not just nod and agree, but really listen. Because when people feel heard, they speak up sooner. And when they know you see the big picture — even if they don’t always agree with every detail — they trust you’re moving the ship in the right direction.

I’m not a specialist. I’ve learned to stop pretending I should be. My strength as a leader comes from creating structure, offering perspective, and caring enough to make space for the people who do know all the details. That’s what I’ve come to believe: leadership is not about being the smartest. It’s about making others feel like they can do their smartest work around you.