When I Realized I Was the Problem

“Bryce, you were being a total d*ck to everyone.”

The feedback surfaced during a promotion conversation. I was informed our advertising agency lead had hesitations… not about my performance, but about how I treated people when things got tense.

A year earlier I had been asked to step up while someone on my team was out on leave. The same meetings, but now I was in charge.

I felt exposed.

I didn’t know enough yet. I hadn’t built the confidence that usually comes with authority. The expectations arrived faster than my experience did.

So I compensated.

I talked louder.
I pushed harder.
I made sharper demands than the situation required.

I thought it looked decisive from the outside.

Inside, it felt like trying to stay afloat.

When the promotion came up, that stretch of behavior followed me. They weren’t questioning whether I could do the job. They were questioning whether they wanted to do it with me.

Ouch.

I could have defended it, blamed it on the pressure, explained the circumstances.

Instead, I admitted it.

I told them I had felt underprepared, that I had been trying to prove I deserved the seat. That the version of me they experienced wasn’t the leader I wanted to become.

I apologized.

I told the lead she could call it out directly to me any time moving forward.

She never had to.