The Myth of the Fix

I wanted to be the leader who made things better. But sometimes that's not the job.

True leadership doesn’t stay inside the lines. You care deeply. You want to fix things. But sometimes the best thing you can do is help someone leave before they hate it—and maybe make them a breakup playlist on the way out.

Here’s something I didn’t expect when I stepped into leadership:
I make breakup playlists… for my team.
Not for their love lives—for their jobs, their projects, their idealistic goals.
Because sometimes people fall out of love with the work. With the mission. With the place that once felt like home.
And sometimes leadership sounds less like coaching and more like saying:
"No one is keeping you here."

I’ve never said it out loud. But I’ve absolutely thought it.
Usually when someone I care about is spiraling, burnt out, frustrated—and I’ve already pulled every lever I can reach.
I want to fix it.
I try to fix it.
But the machinery doesn’t move.

And that’s the moment you face it:
There is no fix.

Let’s rewind.

I became a leader because I care. Because I’m good at solving problems.
Because I love a strategic spreadsheet almost as much as I love a team in sync.

But managing through influence?

I’ll be honest—the first time I saw "manage through influence" in a job description, I laughed.
Like, cackled.
It sounded like a fancy way to say: "You’re responsible, but you don’t actually get to decide anything. Good luck!"

But now? I get it.

Managing through influence is the corporate equivalent of being the oldest sibling during a family crisis—translating chaos, absorbing everyone’s emotions, making the best of a mess you didn’t create.

I say this lovingly as the youngest child, who benefitted immensely from the best sister doing exactly that.

So what do you do when your team is hurting and you can’t fix it?

Because here’s the thing about managing through influence: it’s not just a leadership philosophy—it’s a daily emotional gymnastics routine. You’re not the decision-maker. You’re the in-between. The explainer, the advocate, the buffer zone. You’re close enough to the pain to feel it and far enough from the power to do much about it.

You don’t get the magic wand or the final word. You get influence—which is just a polite way of saying, “people might listen to you, if you say it the right way, at the right time, to the right person, while manifesting under a full moon.”

And one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn in that space is this: your influence is still power. Even when you can’t fix it. Even when the levers don’t budge. Even when you feel like you’re just narrating a slow-motion train wreck from the conductor’s lounge.

Because influence means people look to you—not just for answers, but for cues. Which means sometimes the most important thing you can do is check your reaction before trying to shape theirs. Sometimes it means setting aside your own frustration about the third priority shift in two weeks so you don’t accidentally become the ringleader of a workplace riot. Sometimes it means you need to take a breath, name what’s hard, and still find a way to move forward with integrity.

That’s the tension. That’s where it gets real.

Because managing through influence doesn’t require a director title or a manager badge. It can be anyone. It can be a peer. It can be a part-time staffer who’s just trying to protect team morale.

And the hardest part is that moment when being right isn’t the same as doing what you were hired to do. And those two things don’t always align.

You have to lead anyway.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth I’ve had to sit with: it’s not about you. Not in that moment.

When someone brings you their fear, frustration, confusion, grief—it’s about them. Full stop.

I recently took a workshop on the art of listening. And the biggest thing I took away? You have to stop centering yourself. Which, as someone who loves a reflective spiral, is incredibly hard to do.

It means resisting the urge to ask a leading question. It means not relating it back to your own experience. And it means—maybe most counterintuitively of all—not asking “why.” Because when people are vulnerable, they’re not usually asking for logic. They’re often asking for space.

And when you’re a leader, sometimes your job is to just take it. No defensiveness. No commentary. No need to fix it. You don’t get to have your opinion in that moment. You just get to be the one who listens and makes them feel like they’re not alone in the storm.

Their feelings might not be perfectly rational. But they’re real. And real is enough.

So you:

• Listen. Even when it’s hard to hear.

• Validate. Even when it stings.

• Clarify what’s in your control—and what isn’t.

• Give context without making excuses.

• Model calm, but stay human. Polished isn’t the same as plastic.

• Remind people they still have agency.

• Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.

• Care anyway. Especially when it hurts.

And when the meeting ends, the Slack thread fades out, and your camera turns off?

You scream into the void.
You text your work bestie: “I’M SCREAMING.”
You make a Spotify playlist called "It’s Time to Go (Team Edition)"
You cry.
You eat something comforting.
You do it again tomorrow.

That conversation—the one where someone’s feelings are raw and you’re doing your best not to center yourself? That’s not always the end. It’s not even the hardest one. It’s the setup.

Because the real gut-punch comes later. When the venting fades. When the dust settles. When the quiet in-between gives someone enough space to realize: they might be done.

It shows up in the 1:1s that start casually and end with emotional bombshells. The “I don’t think I love it anymore” ones. The “I want to leave, but I feel like I’m betraying something” ones. The “I know you’ve done everything you can… but I still think I have to go” ones.

And that’s when it really matters that you’ve built trust. That’s when they need someone who won’t flinch or talk them out of their truth. That’s when leadership becomes less about retention—and more about respect.

That’s when I ask:

"If it doesn’t change… can you be at peace with it?"

It’s not a threat.
It’s not a dare.
It’s a mirror.

If you’ve built the trust, the confidence, the respect… they’ll answer truthfully.
They will tell you if they can… if they want to keep trying…
They will tell you if they can’t… if they are ready start planning their exit.
And sometimes, they’ll tell you, they can’t be at peace but they also aren’t in a position to leave…

Because yeah—some people have choices.
And some don’t.

There’s luxury in being able to walk away.
But not everyone has the runway, the privilege, the safety net to do it.

And so, sometimes leading means sitting with people in their stuckness.
Not rushing to solve.
Not cheerleading over their grief.
Just... being there.
Naming the ache.
Making space for the nuance.

Because staying isn’t always weakness.
Leaving isn’t always disloyalty.
And resentment isn’t inevitable—if we’re honest about the tradeoffs.

If the answer isn’t peace—if they’re burnt out, boxed in, or just done—that’s not the end of the conversation. It’s the inflection point where leadership stops being about solving and starts being about supporting. It’s the moment you shift from trying to fix it to helping them face it, with as much clarity and compassion as possible. This is where managing through influence takes its truest shape—where you accept that not every problem has a solution, and that sometimes the best thing you can offer is space, honesty, and a soft place to land.

It’s the beginning of a different kind of support.

You help them:

• Make informed, honest decisions.

• Name what they can control.

• Accept what they can’t (without shame).

• Build a runway out.

• Leave before they hate it.

Sometimes that means reworking the role.
Sometimes it means advocating for something better but not promising to deliver it if you can’t.
And sometimes it means helping them pack—not literally, but emotionally.
Helping them leave with clarity, not chaos.
Helping them survive without cracking into pieces.

I’ve done it.
I’ve helped someone write their resignation letter.
I’ve made playlists to send them off.
I’ve grieved their departure and celebrated their escape.

Because “owning your journey” doesn’t mean working harder and hoping the system magically changes. It doesn’t mean sacrificing your well-being at the altar of performance reviews. It doesn’t mean staying silent when the structure is broken, or trying to yoga-breathe your way through systemic dysfunction.

It means acknowledging the difference between corporate responsibility and humanhood. It means recognizing when the company’s needs and your personal values are no longer aligned—and deciding what, if anything, you’re willing to compromise.

It means understanding that sometimes the most courageous thing you can do isn’t to fix it—but to name it. To hold space. To stop pretending that loyalty should come at the cost of peace.
It means telling the truth.
It means asking:

“What would make this suck less?”
“What’s worth protecting—your job title, or your peace?”

It’s open conversation around what would make their day-to-day more palatable if they don’t have something already lined up. If they can’t afford to leave without something lined up. To ensure that they are keeping some peace while also still doing the job they are being paid to do… because we all know, when you don’t want to do something, it makes it that much harder to do it.

At the end of the day, it’s about protecting their peace. Making sure they feel seen, heard, validated. That they know their options. That they know their next steps. And yes—that the work is still getting done.

There are obviously lines we don’t cross—ethics, compliance, legal stuff, the whole gambit. But while someone is still here, it is okay to ask them to continue fulfilling their role. To keep showing up. To do the job they were hired to do.

It’s also okay—necessary, even—to validate that doing the minimum is enough in this season. They don’t need to “exceed expectations” on their way out. They don’t need to win MVP while they’re quietly planning their exit.

As a lifelong “career” overachiever, I know how hard that is to hear—let alone embody. But as a leader, it’s your job to say it anyway:

You are allowed to do the job you’re paid for and nothing more. You are allowed to protect your energy. You are allowed to just… be okay. And that’s enough.

And here’s what humbles me (and mildly roasts me) every time I spiral about this stuff:

I don’t have the fix. I don’t have the playbook. I have influence, a knack for metaphors, and a tendency to crack jokes when I'm feeling some type of way.

I only have my story (which comes with my own personal playbook lol).
I can empathize. I can support. I can share what worked for me (when appropriate or asked).

But I don’t have a roadmap for someone else’s life.
Because their story is being written by their reality. Their context. Their values.

And that means I can’t always point to the next step.
I can’t guarantee a soft landing.
I can’t even promise it’ll be okay.

But I can say:
“I’m here. Let’s figure out what’s true for you, together.”

Because leadership—real leadership—is reminding people that they have agency. And giving them the space to actually use it. To stay. To go. To pause. To process. Whatever they need, without judgment.

It’s not about pushing them to act. It’s about standing beside them while they remember they can.

Because it isn't about having the answers.
It’s about creating the conditions where people feel brave enough to ask the real questions.
The ones that don’t fit in a Q3 slide deck.

Leadership isn’t neat.

It’s not just mentoring or managing or strategy or HR-lite.
It’s all of it.
It’s grief and guilt and growth and goodbye.
It’s the emotional toll of trying to fix what isn’t fixable—and showing up anyway.
It’s learning to lead not through answers, but through presence. Through the quiet choice to stay when it’s hard, to soften when it stings, and to guide people through the mess without pretending it isn’t messy.

It’s helping someone you care about walk away from the thing you hired them into.
It’s making it okay for them to say goodbye to you.
It’s embracing the “if you love something, set it free” cliché—and meaning it.
It’s saying, “It’s okay to leave the nest,” and meaning that, too. No guilt. No shame. Just honesty.

I’ve jokingly said to my team, “Never leave me,” because I love working with them so much. But if they do leave? I mean it when I say I support them. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that real connection doesn’t stop at the company door.

Some of the people I trust most—the ones I still call when I need advice, a gut check, or just someone who gets it—are people I haven’t worked with in years. Some were my managers. Some were peers. Some managed me through influence, long before I ever had a title.

Leadership is letting people be human. Giving them permission to be honest.
And sometimes, that means admitting: if they can’t be human here—if you can’t fix it, if we can’t fix it, if the company’s direction has changed and the values no longer align—then the kindest, most courageous thing you can do is help them say goodbye.

Because we are not stuck. We have agency. We can build exit plans and find other roles. We can network, explore, reimagine. Sometimes the right next step is somewhere else.
And sometimes, it’s still here—but in a different role, a different capacity, a different chapter.

Either way, we make room for the real conversation. We lead by letting go when it’s time.

Because sometimes—

The company wants you to be a captain, but your people need you to be a lifeboat.

And somewhere in between the strategy decks, the shifting priorities, and the sheer volume of Slack threads—you have to figure out how to be both. Or at least try.

And if you’re emotionally overinvested like me?
You try to be both anyway.

And maybe—if you’re really lucky—you’ve seen it done before.
By someone who led without being asked.
Who didn’t have the title, but did it anyway.
Someone who taught you how to care, how to carry, how to hold it all with grace.

I learned how to lead by watching someone do it first.
Thanks for the blueprint.

As always, caffeinated, chaotic, & curious

- Mads