A Board Meeting Mobbing

I’m in a board meeting, ready to report back on a major event I’ve created and led. I’m still buzzing with energy from the incredible feedback we’ve received After all the long days and effort they’ve put in, I’m so proud of my team and what we’ve achieved. I finish my report, Papers rustle back onto the table. I look around, expecting smiles instead, the temperature in the room drops. There’s a long silence. Then the questions start. Not about what we'd achieved. About rules. Decisions I'd made. Exceptions I'd allowed in order to make the event work. My stomach drops. I try to explain. But before I can finish one answer, another accusation comes. Then another. The questions get sharper. One voice in particular gets louder. Angrier. I grip the sides of my chair and try to keep up. I look around the table, trying to understand what was happening. Some barely speak. Just look at me with unreadable expressions. No one challenges what is happening. What have I missed? I stare down at the agenda. And slowly, something begins to dawn on me. This isn't really about my report. Whatever I say, I’m not going to change what is happening here. I search the faces around the table for a flicker of care. Nothing. A numbness washes over me. My head spins. I reach for joyful memories of the event, anything solid to hold onto, but my mind is blank. Everything feels foggy. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. After the meeting, I slipped out through the back door. I couldn’t face my team or their hopeful questions: “How did it go?” I went into my office, kept the lights off, closed the door, and sat completely still until everyone else had left. Looking back, I think that meeting was the beginning of the end. My relationship with the board deteriorated. The treatment got worse. And I began to realise that I might be being pushed out. A short while later I was made redundant. I had given my heart and soul to that organisation. After everything we’d achieved, I had gone from feeling proud of what we’d done to becoming a problem. I know now that there were things happening around me that I didn’t understand at the time. Perhaps I never will. But I do know what we achieved. I know the work we did. And I know how much of myself I gave to it. I think that’s part of what has stayed with me. Knowing how much I gave. And how little care there seemed to be in the way it ended. That still hurts.