There’s a version of me that walked out of corporate America with a smile, a handshake, and a carefully curated “thank you for the opportunity” speech.
And then there’s the real version.
The one that sat in her car after being walked out, staring straight ahead in shock. The one who came home that night to all her belongings discarded on the front porch after years of exceptional service. The one who laid in bed that night somewhere between exhausted and wide awake, realizing that what she just left wasn’t just a job… it had been an excruciatingly slow, soul sucking erosion of who she was.
This is the exit interview they didn’t get. Because let’s start here—it wasn’t in our heads.
I don’t care how many times they told us that we were overthinking, overreacting, or “just needed to toughen up.” I don’t care how polished the leadership team looked on paper or how many buzzwords they threw around about a culture of servant leadership and team collaboration. If you were waking up anxious, replaying conversations in your head, walking into meetings already braced for impact, your body knew what your brain was still trying to negotiate.
Toxic doesn’t always come in loud, obvious ways. Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s strategic. Sometimes it’s wrapped in just enough praise to keep you second-guessing yourself. And if you ever had to convince yourself it wasn’t toxic, I’m going to hold your hand when I say this—IT WAS, or you wouldn’t have been wondering.
And then there’s the leaders who somehow never quite knew what was going on. You know the ones. The ones who were “confused” when decisions needed to be made, but crystal clear when it came to handing off responsibility and finger pointing when their bad idea failed. The ones who somehow always needed more context, more time, more explanation… while you were out here carrying the weight of entire department, facility, division, on your back.
We like to call that weaponized incompetence. I used to, too. But let’s call it what it actually is—strategy! They don’t listen to the engaged and expert operators. They don’t heed the advice from the thought leaders with years of experience. They declare the strategy from their siloed ivory tower and then sit back and wait…
Because if they stay just unclear enough, you stay over-responsible. You step in. You clean it up. You make it work. And before you know it, you’re doing your job and theirs, wondering why you’re exhausted and still somehow not enough. OR their strategy was so poorly advised that it was impossible to execute successfully even by the best of the best and they blame you when it inevitably fails.
And just when you think you’ve found your people… the ones you can trust… the ones in the trenches with you… that’s when it hits. The betrayal.
Nothing prepares you for that moment. Not the kind that comes from someone far removed, but the kind that comes from someone close. Your “right hand.” The one who had access to your thoughts, your strategy, your reality behind closed doors.
Corporate has a funny way of teaching you this lesson the hard way: proximity does not equal loyalty.
And when that switch flips, it doesn’t just shake your trust in them—it shakes your trust in yourself. You start wondering what you missed, what you misread, what you should’ve seen coming. But here’s the truth I had to learn the long way around: you didn’t miss anything. You showed up with integrity in a system that often rewards self-preservation over it. That’s not your flaw. That’s the environment. You’ll never be able to truly process and understand it and that’s a good thing, because that’s not who you are! So leave the snakes with each other in the viper pit and stand tall!
Because sometimes, if you’re really lucky—or really honest—you do become the problem. Not because you’re doing your job wrong, but because you’re doing it too right… out loud, and a weaponized incompetent or a snake can’t stand that!
Because nothing disrupts a toxic system faster than someone who tells the truth without watering it down. Suddenly it’s not about your results anymore. It’s about your tone. Your delivery. Your “fit.” You go from being a high performer to being “difficult” real quick when your honesty starts making the wrong people uncomfortable. When you start calling the bullshit what it is…bullshit.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—corporate doesn’t fear failure nearly as much as it fears honesty. Because honesty exposes what silence was meant to protect. And if your truth threatens them, your silence was never going to save you.
So let’s talk about the part no one prepares you for—the leaving. Because walking away, voluntarily or not, sounds empowering in hindsight, but in the moment? It’s terrifying. You question everything. Your stability. Your identity. Your next move. You’ve been conditioned to believe that staying equals safety, that pushing through equals strength, that burnout is just part of the deal.
But what they don’t tell you is what staying actually costs. Your peace. Your confidence. Your sense of self. And the moment you finally choose yourself—really choose yourself—something shifts.
The noise quiets. The tension releases. The version of you that you’ve been slowly negotiating away starts to come back online.
For me, leaving corporate America wasn’t a failure. It was the promotion. Not the kind that came with a new title or a bigger paycheck, but the kind that gave me my life back. The kind that reminded me that I was never “too much,” I was just in environments that required me to be less, and I didn’t cooperate.
So no… this wasn’t the exit interview they got. This was the one they earned.
Corporate tried me. But they didn’t break me. And if you’ve lived it too… yeah, you already know!
And if you’re reading this and seeing yourself in any part of it, let me leave you with this— you are not crazy, you are not too much, and you are definitely not the problem. You’re just finally seeing the system for what it is. And once you see it… you can’t unsee it.
If you’re ready to take your leadership to the next level and learn to deal with your toxic environment (or need to figure out how to change it), go ahead and schedule an Allie-Vention Call with me … because we should talk.
