Boundaries: A True Story

I once worked side by side with someone who had no direct authority over me — but her title and degrees made it easy to feel like she was "above" me. We'll call her Francis. She had strong opinions and was not afraid to share them. My neck still hasn't forgiven me for all that nodding. LOL.

I remember the exact moment I realized I was blindly following her lead without ever checking in with my own experience and knowledge…

We were in a meeting with another senior leader — we'll call him George — and a member of my team. George brought forward a strategy he'd used successfully in his own area for years, offering it in good faith in case it might help ours too. It wasn't how we normally did things, but I was intrigued. I asked a few questions to understand it better.

Suddenly, Francis stepped in to shut the conversation down. She implied George was only offering this to try to take over our work. My staff and I sat there in shock. Her accusation was unfounded, and I could tell it caught George off guard too — he retreated. We ended the meeting in an odd, tense silence.

Afterward, Francis pulled me aside and gave me a "talking to" — about not trusting people like that.

I tried to smooth things over, likely falling all over myself. I'm embarrassed to even share this.

And then I did nothing.

I wish I could tell you I found my courage in that meeting. I didn't.

For months, the same pattern continued. She pushed, I yielded. All that nodding turned out to be hard on more than just my confidence — I ended up on medical leave with a herniated disc. (Turns out the neck pain joke wasn't really a joke.)

While I was home recovering, three members of my leadership team showed up at my door. They weren't there to check on my back. They were there because they couldn't hold it in any longer — they told me Francis had been degrading them in meetings and threatening them if they didn't fall in line, all while I'd been out.

I had spent months protecting my own comfort by staying quiet. But this wasn't about me anymore. These were my people, sitting in my living room, telling me they were suffering.

That was the wall.

I came back and started having direct conversations with Francis — real ones. Not because I'd suddenly found unlimited courage, but because there were real people on the line, and their wellbeing mattered more than my discomfort with conflict.

Good Girl Syndrome isn't undone in one meeting or one moment of bravery. For me, it took my body breaking down and my team's wellbeing being at risk before I found my voice. It's undone slowly, decision by decision, until speaking up feels less like a risk and more like just being yourself.

If you're still in the "nodding along" phase — I see you. It doesn't mean you're weak. It means you were taught, like so many of us were, that being agreeable was safer than being honest.

But you can unlearn it. I'd rather you learn it sooner than I did.

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Based on what you’ve read of my story, have you fallen into Good Girl Syndrome?

What do I mean? Well, you may have Good Girl Syndrome if your days feel like this:

• Your boss gives you a directive, you nod your head (regardless of your insights or opinion) and you move forward without question

• A male colleague interrupts you mid-sentence in a meeting, you let him finish his thought instead of reclaiming yours

• You disagree with a decision in a meeting, you save your real thoughts for a private conversation afterward — never in the room where it could actually change the outcome

• Someone with more tenure (but no formal authority over you) "suggests" how you should handle a situation, you treat it as an instruction rather than an opinion

• A senior leader you've never even worked with weighs in on your project, you defer to their opinion over your own — simply because of their title

Do any of these hit home for you? Well, they certainly did for me. This was me for many, many years. I could go on about how we got here like societal norms that started when we were little girls, but I'll save you from that tirade.

Now the good news… it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to be this way. I have a group session starting in September that is bringing women together who want to discover their authentic selves. Will you be bold enough to join us?