How do you talk to someone whose title intimidates you?
Dear Meeting Room,
At the start of my career, I didn’t know the difference between respect and fear, at least not in a workplace setting. For me authority was a strange mix of admiration and anxiety. I wanted to be noticed, but not exposed.
My first real boss didn’t make it easier. He was charismatic and wildly extroverted, the kind of leader who filled a room before he even said anything. He had a certain way of making jokes that made everyone laugh, but also more often than not, he made someone look stupid in the process. Ask a clumsy question, and he’d riff off it with sharp wit. Everyone would laugh. Mostly at his joke, not the person, but if you were that person, you felt it.
What no one tells you early on is that once you’re seen a certain way, it sticks.
So, I stopped asking him questions. I didn’t want to be that guy that was always laughed at. The one people associated with punchlines. I started to ask my colleagues instead. Asking them the questions I didn’t dare voice out loud. And most often when my boss was not around. It wasn’t that he was mean, he was actually a kind person, I believe. He just liked making people laugh a little too much. Even if it meant someone else became the setup for the punchline.
What no one tells you early on is that once you’re seen a certain way, it sticks. At another job, a few years later, I ended up in the “funny guy” role. Not because I was trying to be funny, I just liked lightening the mood. But my manager didn’t really know what to do with it. His way of responding was to “one-up” me with louder jokes. We’d go back and forth in front of others, and somehow I always ended up being the one who looked dumber. Not intentionally, I think. But he was the boss. His laugh carried more weight.
So I stopped joking. Especially when he was around. But now the damage was done. He kept joking with me, even when I gave nothing back, and slowly, I became the one who could be joked with. I felt like I was not taken seriously. And the worst part? At the same time, I was leading a top-secret project with the c-suite. I was doing the best, most serious work of my career, but I couldn’t talk about it due to the confidentiality of the project. I couldn’t show it. So I stayed in the shadow of a role I never asked for.
That’s the thing about authority, it shapes the room, even when it doesn’t mean to.
I remember a meeting from that first job. A director had joined us to discuss sales strategy. I wanted to say something. I had ideas. But I never found the right moment. Never felt bold enough. I kept trying to time it, to jump in without sounding junior. But I missed my window. I stayed quiet. And I still think about that meeting. Not because I had something revolutionary to say. But because I let fear of being misunderstood overrule my desire to be heard.
Around that same time, another person joined the company, someone with more experience, more presence. During her visit to our office, I watched her ask every question I was afraid to ask. Smart ones, simple ones. Even the slightly dumb ones. No one batted an eye. That’s when I realized: it’s not just what you ask. It’s how.
Confidence isn’t loudness. It’s ease. And I didn’t have that yet.
These days, I’m more confident. Not immune to hierarchy, but not defined by it either. I’m relatively high up in the organization now, and that comes with a different kind of visibility, one that lets you shape culture, not just respond to it. I still think about how authority bends a room, how easily one comment or reaction can define someone else’s role without meaning to. So I try to hold onto the professionalism, without repeating the patterns I once shrank under.
