I don't remember her exact words. The memory blurs at the edges. But I remember the feeling that came after, the rage that flooded through me, the way I snapped back from a place of authority and control.
I put her back “in her place.”
That moment marked me. Not because I handled it well. Because I handled it terribly.
The Designer Who Thought He Was Leading
When that employee screamed, I didn't respond as a leader. I responded as a designer whose creation was under attack.
For years, I'd been an excellent designer. My work got noticed internationally. The company i co-founded grew to over 100 employees. But somewhere in that climb, I never made the shift from creating work to leading people.
To me, the company was an extension of my creative identity. Criticism felt personal. Challenges felt like threats. And when that employee finally reached her breaking point, I defended my territory instead of listening to my team member.
I had no formal leadership training outside of military service and sports coaching. I was a creative professional who climbed the ladder because my design work was excellent. Nobody taught me that technical excellence doesn't translate to people skills.
That's the trap many creative professionals fall into: We assume the same instincts that make us great at our craft will make us great at leadership. They don't.
The Leadership Failures I Couldn't See
I reacted instead of reflected. When that employee screamed, I felt rage flood through me. I snapped back from a place of authority and control. I shut down all communication in that moment. Years later, I learned my undiagnosed ADHD contributed to my impulsivity, but ADHD or not, the failure was universal: I protected my ego instead of creating safety for my team.
I was chronically unavailable. That explosion didn't come from nowhere. Pressure had built in her over time because she saw me as unavailable. She had no space to let out her frustrations before they reached critical mass. When pressure isn't countered, it eventually explodes or implodes. That moment was my one chance to fix the relationship and get to the root cause. I cut her off instead.
I prioritized everything except my team. Where was my attention? On clients. On producing work at the level that got us to success. On building systems, administration, travel, lectures, new business. The list was endless, and prioritization felt random. I told myself we needed money before we could prioritize the team properly. That excuse kept me from seeing the truth: time with my team was the priority I kept avoiding.
I lacked self-awareness. I didn't understand what leadership actually meant. Subconsciously, I was still a designer, not a leader. There was no conscious reflection about what it meant to lead people. We were at the forefront of development for our clients, but for ourselves, we were falling behind. I was designing businesses but not designing the conditions for people to thrive.
The Real Cost
That employee never felt safe enough to come to me again. The relationship went back to what it was before, which meant it was never good in the first place.
But the cost extended beyond her. Tension filled the office after that confrontation. Others in the team witnessed it. I believe it made it harder for them to open up, knowing what happened when someone finally did.
All those missed conversations. All those insights I never received. All that trust I never built. That's the real cost of poor leadership, and it's impossible to calculate fully.
We should have brought in organizational psychologists earlier. We should have invested money in professional help instead of trying to solve people problems with the same thinking that created them. We knew we needed to prioritize culture, but we kept choosing other fires to fight.
The Turning Point
Several things forced me to see myself from the outside over time, but that screaming match left a mark I could identify as a sliding doors moment.
Later, my ADHD diagnosis gave me neurological context for some of my struggles. Therapy and conversations with professionals helped me understand patterns. But the real work was simpler and harder: learning to see my failures clearly and committing to the cycle of trying, failing, reflecting, and improving.
The same cycle that works in design works in leadership. But you have to be willing to see yourself as the problem first.
What I Should Have Done Instead
Design systems for psychological safety. When frustration makes issues surface, handled right, they become sources of tremendous insight. They can lead to beneficial restructuring or small tweaks that revolutionize culture. But that only happens when people feel safe enough to speak up before they're screaming.
Leaders need to design platforms and opportunities that allow for psychological safety, individual adaptation, and availability. This should be your top priority, not something you get to when you have money or time.
Expand your perspective. To see yourself from the outside, you need multiple viewpoints. Every experience adds perspectives, points of origin from which you can view a situation. When you're in the moment, patterns become invisible. You need to actively seek external input, professional help, and honest feedback.
Separate emotion from response. A good leader needs to distance themselves from emotion and see behind the emotion when emotions run high. When someone challenges you, that's not an attack. That's information. Your job is to make space for it, not defend against it.
Learn while doing, but get help. Leadership is a field that needs education and training like any other field. You don't have to go the traditional route through school, but a learning program needs to be well thought through and organized. Or you can learn the hard organic way through mistake after mistake, but don't leave a trail of bodies along the way.
The Path Forward
I'm grateful for that experience now. It hurt both of us, but it marked a turning point. That former employee is still dear to me. We're friends. Things worked out.
But I carry the weight of knowing I could have been better sooner. I wish that explosion had happened earlier, when there might have been less accumulated damage.
If you're a creative professional moving into leadership, understand this: your creative instincts won't save you. Get training. Real training. Invest money in organizational psychologists and leadership development before you think you can afford it.
If you're already leading poorly, know that awareness is the first step. You can't fix what you can't see. But once you see it clearly, you can start the work of becoming the leader your team deserves.
The work is trying, failing, reflecting, and trying again. The same cycle that makes you better at your craft makes you better at leadership. You just have to be willing to see your failures as clearly as you see your creative work.
That employee who screamed at me gave me a gift I wasn't ready to receive. She showed me I had work to do. It took me too long, but I finally did it.
