Hiding From Monsters (At Work)

There was another round of layoffs announced last week. I saw the headline, felt my stomach drop, and closed the tab. I told myself I'd read it later. Instead, I answered emails, reorganized my calendar, cleared out old files — anything that felt productive but didn't require me to actually sit with what I'd just read.

It reminded me of how kids handle a monster under the bed. They don't investigate. They pull the covers over their heads and hope that not looking makes it not real.

I was doing the adult, corner-office version of the same thing.

Here's the question worth asking: what's the monster you're avoiding right now? The underperforming hire you haven't addressed. The budget number that doesn't add up. The market shift everyone on your team can feel but no one's said out loud in a meeting. The conversation with a peer or a boss you've been putting off for weeks.

Leaders don't usually avoid these things because they're careless. We avoid them because naming a problem makes it real, and real problems demand a response. So we stay busy with minutiae — the inbox, the status update, the meeting that could've been an email — because it feels like motion. It isn't progress. It's cover.

The uncomfortable truth is that avoidance doesn't make the monster smaller. It just means you're dealing with it later, on its terms instead of yours, usually after it's grown.

So here's the move: stop hiding. Look at the thing directly and name it. Not in vague terms — specifically. What exactly are you afraid will happen if you address it? Loss of control? Conflict? Being wrong? Once you can say it plainly, it stops being a shapeless shadow and starts being a problem you can actually work.

You don't have to solve it today. You just have to stop pretending it isn't there.

What's the monster you've been avoiding this week? Name it. Then come out from the covers and deal with it.

Michele Aikens is CEO of Clear Sight Coaching & Consulting Inc.

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