The Conversation I Practiced in My Kitchen

How I learned that leadership sometimes means choosing between your word and your role — and why both choices have a cost

I was standing in my kitchen at 6 AM, practicing words I didn't want to say.

"We need to discuss your employment status."

No, too formal.

"I have some difficult news."

Too vague.

"I know I told you your job was safe, but…"

That one made my stomach turn.

I'd been rehearsing this conversation for three days, trying to find a way to deliver news that would shatter someone's trust in me. Someone who had asked me directly, multiple times, if they were going to be fired. Someone I'd looked in the eye and said no to, because I meant it.

But everything had changed, and I was the one who had to deliver the blow.

The Setup: When Good Faith Promises Meet Bad Systems

I was the COO of a seasonal business. The controller reported to me — a man who was struggling with performance but desperately trying to protect the financial systems he'd built.

Our financials lagged 21 days behind reality. In a seasonal business, that meant we were always reacting instead of responding.

He carried the entire load, partly from a desire to control, but mostly from a need to protect what he'd created. The systems were archaic and slow, but they were his.

We'd had several difficult one-on-ones. He kept asking if he was getting fired. I kept saying no, because I was working with him on loosening his grip, giving him time to show he could adapt.

That was the truth. Until it wasn't.

The Manipulation No One Teaches You to Recognize

The CEO wanted the entire finance team gone. Not because of performance — because finance was questioning how much money we were spending on our leadership coach.

This coach had become increasingly influential in our decisions, and increasingly protective of her contract.

She didn't like that finance was asking uncomfortable questions about costs. Her solution? Get rid of the people asking the questions.

A previous CEO had been fired for exactly this kind of financial mismanagement. But somehow, we were walking down the same path.

I was caught between a coach manipulating situations for her benefit, a CEO with questionable motives, and an employee who trusted me to tell him the truth about his job security.

"When you're practicing conversations you don't want to have in your kitchen at 6 AM, that's your integrity trying to tell you something."

The Impossible Choice (And the Coward's Bargain I Made)

The CEO asked me to fire the controller. I struggled with this emotionally because I'd been telling him he wasn't getting fired. I felt completely out of integrity.

So I did what felt like the only thing I could do in that moment: I asked the CEO to handle the termination himself. I made up some excuse about why it would be better coming from him.

I thought I was preserving my integrity by not being the one to break my word directly.

I was wrong.

When Everything Collides

The day came for the CEO to have the conversation.

The controller didn't show up to work.

I called him. His cat had just died that morning.

I sat in my kitchen, holding the phone, knowing what I had to do. Knowing it was terrible. Knowing there was no good choice left.

"I'm sorry about your cat," I heard myself say. "But you need to be at the office within the hour."

He was fired an hour later by the CEO.

On the day his cat died.

Because I called him in.

The Weight That Changes How You See Yourself

I stayed in that role for months after that day, carrying the weight of what felt like a betrayal of everything I believed about leadership.

I'd been manipulated into participating in something that violated my core values, and I'd chosen my role over my integrity.

The moment in my kitchen wasn't just about practicing difficult words. It was about discovering that sometimes leadership puts you in situations where every choice feels wrong, and you still have to choose.

I eventually left that company. It cost me everything — my role, my financial security, my professional network in that industry.

But staying was costing me something even more valuable: my ability to trust my own judgment about right and wrong.

What Business School Doesn't Tell You About Impossible Choices

Leadership training doesn't prepare you for moments when your personal values and your role obligations pull in completely different directions. Most business school case studies assume there's always a "win-win" solution if you're creative enough.

That's not always true.

Sometimes you're handed a decision that's already been made above your head, and your only choice is how to execute it.

Sometimes the system you're part of is broken in ways you can't fix by working harder or being more ethical.

Sometimes leadership means choosing between your word and your role, knowing that either choice will cost you something important.

This is what no one talks about in leadership development programs. The curriculum covers difficult conversations, conflict resolution, and strategic decision-making. But it doesn't cover the moment when you realize the organization is asking you to sacrifice your integrity for their convenience.

The Kitchen Test: How to Know When You're in an Impossible Position

Now when I work with new managers facing impossible situations, I tell them about my kitchen moment. Not because I'm proud of how I handled it, but because I want them to recognize when they're being put in an impossible position.

Here's what I wish I'd known then:

When you're practicing conversations you don't want to have, in your kitchen at 6 AM, pay attention. That's your integrity trying to tell you something. The rehearsal isn't the problem — it's the fact that no version of the words feels right. That discomfort is information.

When every choice feels wrong, the problem might not be your decision-making. It might be the system you're operating in. If you can't find a path that aligns with your values, the issue isn't your navigation skills — it's the map you've been handed.

When you're being asked to break promises you made in good faith, someone is asking you to sacrifice your integrity for their convenience. This is a transfer of cost. They're asking you to absorb the moral weight of their decisions while they maintain plausible deniability.

The cost of choosing your role over your values compounds over time. What feels like a small compromise in the moment can become a weight that changes how you see yourself as a leader. You don't recover from these moments by forgetting them. You recover by learning to recognize them earlier.

"Integrity isn't about never facing impossible choices. It's about choosing consciously, with eyes wide open about the cost."

Four Questions to Ask When You're Facing an Impossible Choice

If you're standing in your own kitchen right now, rehearsing words that make your stomach turn, ask yourself:

1. Am I being asked to break a promise I made in good faith? If yes, understand that someone is transferring their ethical burden to you. This is manipulation, not leadership development.

2. What am I really protecting by staying? Is it your team? Your financial security? Your professional identity? Name it honestly, because the cost of staying needs to justify what you're sacrificing.

3. If I saw someone else in this situation, what would I tell them? We're often clearer about what's right when we're advising others than when we're in the middle of it ourselves.

4. What will I think about this choice in five years? Not whether you'll regret it — you might regret either choice. But which version of yourself do you want to look back and see? The person who chose their values, or the person who chose their role?

What I Would Do Differently Now

If I could go back to that kitchen moment, here's what I would change:

I would have named the manipulation earlier. When the coach started advocating for firing people who questioned costs, I should have called it what it was: a conflict of interest being disguised as leadership advice.

I would have refused to participate. Not by asking the CEO to do it instead, but by saying clearly: "I told this person their job was safe while working with them on improvement. If you want to fire them now, you'll need to do it without my involvement, and I'll need to consider whether I can continue in this role."

I would have documented everything. The promises I made, the context in which I made them, and the pressure I was under to break them. Not to protect myself legally, but to maintain clarity about what actually happened versus the story I might tell myself later.

I would have left sooner. The months I stayed after that day didn't serve anyone — not me, not the organization, not the people still there. I was trying to repair something that was fundamentally broken.

The Healing Happens in the Telling

I share this story because healing happens in the telling. Exposing my own failure might help someone else who's facing something similar.

Every time I tell this story — in my Field Notes newsletter, on my podcast, in conversations with managers who are facing their own impossible choices — I transform what nearly broke me into something that might protect someone else.

That's not erasing what happened. It's making it meaningful.

The conversation I practiced in my kitchen that morning taught me that integrity isn't about never facing impossible choices. It's about choosing consciously, with eyes wide open about the cost.

Sometimes you choose your values over your role. Sometimes you choose your role over your comfort. But you get to decide which kind of leader you are in each moment.

The kitchen rehearsal can't prepare you for every variable. But clarity about your own values can guide you through anything.

Even the conversations you never wanted to have.

Why I Keep Telling This Story

Every time I share this on my podcast or in my newsletter, someone reaches out to say "I thought I was the only one." That's why I keep writing about the messy parts of leadership — because the isolation makes impossible choices even harder.

If this story resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Your experiences help shape what I write about next.

A Question for You

Have you ever stood in your kitchen (or car, or shower) rehearsing a conversation that made you question who you were becoming as a leader?

You're not alone in that moment. And recognizing it for what it is — a signal that something's deeply wrong — is the first step toward making a different choice.

Share your story in the comments below.

Discover your leadership pathway and get tools for navigating impossible choices: The free Leadership Pathway Explorer helps you understand how you make decisions under pressure and what matters most to you as a leader.

Looking for guidance on difficult conversations and ethical leadership? The Manager's Map Drawer includes frameworks for maintaining integrity when everything feels impossible, scripts for naming manipulation, and tools for making values-based decisions in broken systems.

About Catherine Insler

Catherine helps new managers navigate leadership without losing themselves in the process. Her Field Notes newsletter arrives every Wednesday with real stories and practical tools for emerging leaders. No corporate speak, no perfect solutions — just honest guidance for the messy reality of leadership.

After spending years as a COO learning what not to do, she now teaches what she wishes someone had told her: that good leadership isn't about perfection, it's about integrity under pressure.

Tags: difficult conversations, leadership integrity, ethical leadership, impossible choices, workplace manipulation, leadership development, career decisions

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