Nothing about Anna’s day looked different. She faced the same matters, deadlines, and unspoken pressure to move quickly and avoid making mistakes. However, the way she navigated through it had changed.
During a deal call late Monday afternoon, the conversation stalled at a familiar point, with two partners circling the same issue, each waiting for the other to suggest what the client would accept. Anna listened, as she always had.
Anna spoke. “There are two trade-offs,” she said evenly. “If we push this structure now, we preserve leverage but risk friction. If we wait, we protect the relationship but lose momentum. I think we should push, with a clear explanation to the client of why.” The line fell silent. No one corrected her.
“Okay,” one of the partners said. “Say more.”
She did. After the call, Anna sat back and noticed something subtle yet unmistakable. She hadn’t volunteered for more work or softened her point, but she had named the decision, taken a stand, and the partners had listened to her. That was new.
By Wednesday, the pilot appeared again, this time as Anna had arranged.
Instead of asking herself, “What does the partner want?” she asked, “What choice is the firm actually making here?” Instead of hedging, she framed options. Instead of waiting for permission, she made her thinking visible. Not louder or more aggressive, just clearer.
Later that day, Anna and the other pilot program participants met with Susan for their second workshop, a “Leadership Development Workshop.”
The workshop was held in a small conference room on the fourth floor, which the firm used for internal training when the larger rooms were unavailable. As usual, eight mid-level associates participated in the pilot program. They arranged themselves at the table, maintaining a comfortable distance, in their familiar seating.
Susan placed a single sheet of paper face down at each seat before anyone sat down. She didn’t explain it.
“Tell me something you noticed about how you led this week,” she said. “Not what you did well or what was hard. Just what you noticed.”
Carlos went first. He always did. “I solved a problem before anyone knew it existed. The client would have been confused by the deal structure, so I rewrote the summary. The partner loved it. But I don’t think anyone knew I’d made a choice.”
“What choice?” Susan asked.
Carlos paused. “About what to make visible and what to just handle.”
Susan showed neither agreement nor disagreement. She turned to Mei.
Mei looked at her hands. “I’ve been softening my statements. I know what I think, but I add qualifiers until it sounds like I’m still deciding.” She glanced up. “I do it so people don’t feel pressured.”
Susan asked, “Does it work?”
“They don’t feel pressured,” Mei said. “But I don’t think they feel helped either.”
Rachel sat very still. When Susan reached her, she said, “I’ve been leading in ways that keep everyone comfortable. Not in ways that show how I think.”
Susan nodded once. “That’s the distinction,” she said. “Leadership that soothes versus leadership that clarifies.”
Anna jotted it down.
Ben shifted in his seat. He was most comfortable with direct speech in the room, maybe too comfortable. “I just say what I see,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a problem.”
“It isn’t always,” Susan said. “But what happens to the people in the room after you say that?”
Ben thought about this. “Sometimes they shut down.”
Then you’ve made it clear for yourself, not for them,” Susan said.
Ben stayed silent, but his posture changed.
Susan picked up the sheet of paper in front of her and turned it over. The others did the same.
Three words were written on it, centered.
Absorbs. Soothes. Clarifies. (Taj *** Does Absorbs Soothes and Clarifies Make Sense as a Mid-Level Leadership Model???)
“Most leaders have a primary pattern,” Susan said. “Something they do naturally and well. Most leaders also have a growth edge, a pattern that doesn’t come easily or that they’ve been avoiding.”
She allowed them to read.
“Carlos,” she said. “What’s your primary pattern?”
“Absorbs,” Carlos said. “I hold onto things until I’ve figured them out.”
“And your growth edge?”
After a beat, Carlos said, “Clarifies. I solve the problem. I don’t always show the work.”
Mei said “Soothes” before Susan asked her. “And I need to clarify more. I know that.”
Rachel said, “I soothe. I want to move toward clarity.”
Ben said “Clarifies” without hesitating. Then, after a pause: “I should probably learn to absorb first.”
Susan turned to Anna. “And you?”
Anna looked at the sheet. She thought about Monday’s call, how she had listed the trade-offs without waiting to see if anyone else would. She considered how the room had changed after she spoke. Not loudly. Just clearly.
“I clarified this week,” she said. “But I don’t do it consistently.”
“You don’t trust it yet,” Susan said.
Anna didn’t argue.
“Turn the sheet over,” Susan said. “On the back, write one sentence. Not a goal or intention. Just a behavior. Write something specific and observable. The behavior you will practice before we meet again.”
The room fell silent. The only sound was the scratching of pens on paper.
Anna wrote: When I see a trade-off, I will name it before the room moves past it.
She didn’t reveal it to anyone.
The changes were small, but they added up.
During a meeting she wasn’t leading, a partner paused and asked, “Anna, what do you think the client cares about most?”
She replied, and the conversation went on.
No announcement, praise, or credit followed, yet Anna still felt the difference. She no longer guessed.
Hal felt it too. By week’s end, he was annoyed, though he couldn’t quite explain why.
Associates were slower to agree, quicker to point out trade-offs, and less deferential in tone without being disrespectful. In one meeting, he cut someone off mid-sentence. “We don’t need a seminar,” he snapped. “Just get to the point.”
And the associate went ahead and did so.
Hal leaned back, jaw tight. This wasn’t defiance; it was something worse. It was precision. He saw conversations taking longer, not because people were confused but because they were clearer. He noticed fewer nods and more framing. He also saw decisions being named rather than absorbed. He hated that. At the end of a long day, Hal muttered to no one in particular, “Why is everything suddenly a discussion?”
No one responded.
Anna left the office that night at her usual time. Nothing dramatic had happened. No promotion, confrontation, or decision about staying or leaving. Yet she felt more centered than before. The mid-level stage no longer felt like a fog she had to endure. Instead, it felt like a place where small, precise choices were being made and where she could finally see her role in shaping them. She didn’t yet know what she would do with that clarity.
Somewhere else in the building, Hal had already decided he didn’t like what was happening to his firm.
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