Their Discomfort Shouldn't Be Your Unemployment Check

There’s something I keep noticing in corporate America, and the more I watch it happen, the harder it becomes to pretend it’s a coincidence.

You’ll see people spend decades working toward leadership roles.

Years of loyalty.

Years of overperforming.

Years of mentoring teams, fixing broken processes, carrying departments through chaos, and becoming the person everyone depends on.

Then somehow, despite all of that, they're stuck.

Same title.Minimal growth.Endless promises about “timing.”Constant conversations about needing just a little more visibility, a little more polish, a little more executive presence.

Meanwhile, someone else flies through the ranks in under ten years. Not always more experienced. Not always more capable. Sometimes, not even particularly good at the actual work, but they fit.

Unsurprisingly, “fit” has become one of the most powerful unspoken currencies in the workplace.

The more time I spend reflecting on my experiences across corporate environments, the more obvious it becomes that success is often less about competence and more about proximity to comfort.

Who makes leadership feel familiar?

Who doesn’t challenge authority too directly?

Who knows how to package disagreement softly enough to avoid making people uncomfortable?

Who understands the performance of professionalism in ways that protect power instead of disrupting it?

Am I hitting a nerve yet?

Those people tend to move faster.

Anyone else? Well, they become “a little difficult.” “Not quite leadership material.” “Not the right culture fit.”

That phrase alone has probably blocked more careers than bad performance ever has.

Companies are pulling back from anything connected to diversity, equity, inclusion, employee advocacy, or people-centered leadership while simultaneously insisting nothing has changed, but people feel the shift.

Especially professionals who built careers around collaboration, mentorship, growth, fairness, accessibility, or simply asking necessary questions inside systems that preferred silence.

There’s a strange irony happening. Workplaces claim they want innovation, transparency, and leadership, but many environments still reward compliance over critical thinking. The safest employee in many organizations is not the smartest one. It’s the one least likely to disrupt the hierarchy.

When layoffs happen? When restructuring starts? Heck, when experienced professionals suddenly can’t get callbacks, much less an offer, despite decades of success? We individualize the problem.

Fix your resume.

Network harder.

Update LinkedIn.

Learn AI.

Be more positive.

As if thousands of highly qualified people all simultaneously forgot how to work.

At some point, we have to stop pretending every professional struggle is a personal failure and start acknowledging that the system itself produces uneven outcomes.

Unfortunately, those outcomes tend to follow familiar lines: race, gender, age, personality, politics, access, proximity, comfort.

Especially comfort.

That doesn’t mean every promotion is undeserved. It doesn’t mean every rejection is discrimination, and it definitely doesn’t mean people shouldn’t continue trying.

However, it does mean we should stop gaslighting people about what they’re experiencing.

Some aren't imagining that they’re frozen in place. Many aren't imagining that advocacy became a liability. Most are not imagining that questioning broken systems changed how leadership has viewed or will view them.

Too many are navigating today’s job market carrying a level of exhaustion that motivational advice simply cannot solve.

This isn’t just about work anymore; it’s about watching entire professional identities become disposable overnight while being told to stay grateful, stay positive, stay polished, and keep performing resilience for an audience that does not fully understand the waters people are swimming in.

That’s the part I think more people need to sit with.

Not just whether someone is struggling, but why certain people seem to keep struggling inside systems they helped build.