Most jobs start with a bang. Or maybe a whimper. A first week full of chaos: An unclear role, incomprehensible onboarding docs, and that creeping sense that no one here really knows what the hell they’re doing. I’d brace myself. I’d start scanning for obvious signs of dysfunction. I’d wonder what disasters still lie hiding, just beneath the surface.
And sometimes, I’d be right—because a lot of places are dysfunctional. You can learn to expect it. You build your instincts around it. You can get used to spotting gilded rot. You can develop a keen eye for it, catching it early, only to lob a snarky “told ya so” to your less-battle-hardened work bestie when shit really hits the fan. You can learn how to survive through it too. How to lead through it. How to hold up the support beams while everyone else pretends that this is totally normal.
Do this enough, and you might even start to derive your worth from fixing the broken. From dousing the flames. From being the only adult in the room who’s actually acting like one. You learn to lead through adrenaline.
Then, one day, you land somewhere new. And it’s… fine. Competent. Functional. Maybe not perfect, but solid. People are smart. Emotionally intelligent, even. The setup doc is slightly outdated, but hey, it exists! There are real processes. There are thoughtful peers. A boss who seems emotionally well-adjusted and who actually listens. A team that doesn’t make you whisper, “Who the hell hired these people?”.
It’s unsettling.
Competence is quiet. It doesn’t scream for your attention the way dysfunction does. It doesn’t beg to be fixed. It just hums. And if you’re used to dysfunction, or to crisis-mode leadership, or to living in a state of permanent high alert? That silence can be disorienting.
It’s then you realize: you’ve internalized a different kind of leadership muscle—one built for triage rather than sustainability. And now it’s time to unlearn some of that. Not to erase it, but to wrap it in cloth, place it gently back into its box, and slide it onto the shelf where you keep the sharp tools. The ones you hope you won’t need, but still keep just within reach. You know the weight of it. You know how it feels in your hand. And still, part of you finds comfort knowing it’s there—just in case everything falls apart again.
Healthy teams don’t need saviors. They need partners. They need people who can see the gaps without assuming disaster. People who can coach without condescending. Who can bring energy and calm to an already functioning system.
This isn’t utopia. No company is. If everything were perfect already—pristine architecture, flawless leadership, every problem already solved—that would be boring. There’d be nothing left to learn. You’d be just coasting.
But we can’t get stuck thinking in polarities. Not every job is paradise or a hellscape. Most are somewhere in the middle. Imperfect. Evolving. Sustainable. Human. They pay well. They build cool things. There are some rough edges and some real opportunities to contribute.
And that’s what the money is for!
So bring your enthusiasm. Bring your curiosity. Bring your strategic thinking and that better-than-average Jira wizardry. Don’t mistake the quiet for a lack of need. Sometimes the most important work happens when you stop bracing for impact and start listening for where you can really help.
That’s what leadership looks like when things are actually working.