Leading a team when you are the one struggling

In 2025 I would blow up in meetings and not care who was in the room. I was good at the work and falling apart at the same time. This is what that looked like from the inside, what I do now, and what I still have not fixed.

TL;DR: Before I resigned in October 2025, I led with rage. I blew up in meetings and took every problem personally. In my new job I hid how much I was struggling. Now I see a therapist every week and ask whether something deserves a response at all. The first reaction is still there.

What it looked like from the inside

“I would let you have it. Didn’t care. I’d blow up in meetings all the time. I did not have a handle on my emotions or anger or anything, and I just felt rage all the time. And I hated that I was that person. I am not proud of that.”

That is what leading while struggling looked like for me. It was loud.

Everything felt like an emergency. “My reaction to things was so extreme. Everything to me was, ‘The world’s gonna end.’ Everything.”

After a while the anger stopped being a reaction and became the baseline. “I was always in a perpetual state of anger. So it was like, I am just going to be angry anyway.”

In 2022 I punched a wall at work. I am not going to dress that up. “That was a mountain of frustration that was unresolved, because so much pressure was just simply put on me. At the time, it felt like, save the world.”

It did not stay at work, either. In 2025, two lanes merged into one and another driver thought I should have let him over. He honked and gave me the finger. When we got to the light, if I hadn’t forgotten to take my seatbelt off, I would have probably fought him.

“I don’t know what the guy had in his car. I don’t know if he was having a bad day. I don’t know if he was in a rush to get to the hospital because his wife was delivering a baby. No clue. I just turned into something that I didn’t deserve to be, because I didn’t give myself the option to let it be something else. I just got angry, and I was prepared to ruin everything because I felt disrespected.”

I was prepared to ruin everything over a lane merge. That is where I was.

Why the rage felt like strength

The same energy made me good at my job.

“I was addicted to the work. I have no problem admitting to that. I was good at it, and it was a constant dopamine hit.” I have a rather addictive personality. It’s part of the ADHD. I could get things done, so I kept doing more. “But then the more I did, the more burned out I got.”

The stage was the one place that energy worked for me. I did a lot of public speaking, and I think now it was the outlet that worked. “The speeches I gave were very aggressive. The feeling that I had on stage is the same feeling I have when I get out-of-control anger. Except on stage, I can control the audience. I can see their reaction. But when I’m angry, I can’t control anything.”

On stage the depression didn’t hit me. “I was in 100 percent control of myself and the crowd. I felt like a superhero.” Then I would walk off and be back to normal.

“There was nothing that I let stop me. I was determined. I am going to win.”

I had to leave to see it

I did not have a clean plan for getting out of it. “The only way I got out of it was changing up the space, and then it forced me to do that self-reflection. If you were to ask me what was my roadmap, I couldn’t tell you, other than I had to resign and do some soul searching.”

I resigned at the end of October 2025. I valued my mental health more than a paycheck. It was a difficult thing to do. But “I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

I know not everyone can walk away from a job. I am not telling you to. I am telling you what it took for me to finally stop and look at myself.

Leaving did not end it

I started the job I have now in April 2026. In those first weeks, before I began working with a coach in May, I hid how much I was struggling.

“I got no one to talk to, because I have to hide it, right? No one can know I’m struggling, that alone at the top type of thing. Even the ones above me can’t know that I’m struggling.”

Earlier in my career, “I would go from a team of six down to two because they can’t perform like I can.” I ended up working 100-hour weeks.

It is still lonely sometimes in the job I have now. “Some of those results are going to eclipse that weekly period. So you need more time to let things percolate. So there’s no dopamine hit for me. It’s just, that’s hard. You know the expression, it’s lonely at the top.”

What I do differently now

I have a regular therapist I see every week, and I have a business coach. If you lead people and you are struggling, getting help is not a weakness.

Coaching gave me something I never had at work: a place where I do not have to perform. “I don’t have to play that game. I can be honest.”

One thing I had to admit was simple. “I have got to stop letting people control my mood.”

I also had to admit that I took everything personally. “Normally at work I would let anything that goes wrong become a personal thing. I would take it personally if something went wrong. Now it’s like, okay, it went wrong. I don’t have to give that the same weight anymore.”

“Just because something happens doesn’t mean it is deserving of a response, whether it’s a tweet or a circumstance or whatever.”

I used to let that first flash of anger be the thing that came out. I didn’t give myself a choice. When I look back, there were so many situations that could have played out better if I had accepted that this thing doesn’t deserve the weight I was giving it. “And then instead of the problem being the thing, it becomes about how I responded to the other person.”

There were two situations in one week where I would normally have snapped, and I didn’t. “I was like, you know what? Let me just focus on the outcome that I want rather than trying to fight this person’s ego issue. I solve my problem. I’ll take that as a win.”

What has not changed

I am not going to pretend I am fixed.

“I will say that I think the explosiveness of that reaction is the same. Now I know what the tools are to eventually calm down, but that reaction is the same. That has not stopped. Unfortunately.”

That is hard to admit. I have always been the guy who doesn’t let anything stop him. “So when I say I can’t stop myself when I get angry, that is disappointing.”

The struggle has not gone away either. In September 2026 I went three days without real sleep. “I would go home and obsess more about what I was going to do the next day.” After about three days of that, I finally admitted to myself that I was struggling. I sent a message to someone I work with that said something like, “Hey, do we have any Tylenol? I just don’t feel right. Like something’s wrong.”

She wrote back something kind. “Within an hour, you would have thought I was never not feeling good at all.”

What is different is what happens after the flash. I have people helping me. I know the tools to eventually calm down, and I choose what comes out of my mouth more often than I used to. That is progress.

The job is not the point

“I used to think my purpose was the job. The job doesn’t define me. It’s not necessarily my purpose. It might be part of it. It’s just a vehicle to get me to the place that I actually want to be. Just to be able to enjoy life.”

Today I can say something I could not say for a long time. “So I love my job, and I haven’t said that in a very long time. I love being here. I love the people that I work with.”

If you are leading a team and you are the one struggling, here is what I learned the hard way. Your mental health is worth more than a paycheck. Get help for yourself. The people you lead deserve the version of you that is not running on rage, and so do you.

If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741741. More resources are on my Get help page.