What she thought was the end of her career, and what came after

Feel free to address her as Lydia. She is a blend of several people and does not belong to this chapter as a member or client. Picture a chief operating officer of 55, roughly forty minutes into a shaky board meeting, when the word "layoffs" snags in her throat and tears start to show.

What pulled her under was not the layoffs. It is the eleven months behind them: a father in hospice, alarm clocks at 4 a.m., and a director across the table who has just asked, for the third time, whether operations "has a handle on this." She does have a handle on it. She has been bracing against that feeling for so long that her hands have begun to hurt.

Twelve people in the Richmond room are watching her closely. Somewhere around four seconds remain before a well-meaning colleague speaks up, and whatever they say will likely do more harm than good. Everything hinges on how she spends those few seconds.

Option A: Apologize and press on

She murmurs "sorry, give me a moment," sips some water, and clicks ahead to the next slide. The trouble is that an apology labels the tears as an error, and the room is now free to treat them as one. For days afterward she keeps replaying what the chair might be thinking, since she apologized before she had any idea how the moment would land.

Option B: Ask for a ten-minute break

Mid-meeting, she calls a break with "let's take ten" and slips out without a word. The problem is that a break called by the person who was crying is a break everyone understands the reason for, and she returns to a room that has had ten minutes to talk about her. The benefit is real, though. She returns collected and gets to close the discussion on her own footing.

Option C: Admit it openly and keep going

She tells the group, "This has been a hard year for this team, and that shows. Let's keep moving." No apology, no justification, just one direct sentence. The downside is that a few directors may remember that sentence far longer than the figures on the slides. The upside is that she has described what everyone saw before anyone else could describe it.

Counsel from veteran leaders

Women who have run boardrooms in Richmond and beyond for years are less alarmed by this than Lydia is. Seasoned board members often point out that tears seldom cause the damage; the apology does. Groups follow the lead of whoever is holding the floor during a charged moment. Frame it as a catastrophe and everyone else will follow suit. Frame it as an ordinary shift in the weather and most people will do the same. There is also a less comfortable truth they point to: people are not judged by the same yardstick. A man who grows emotional over layoffs is seen as "human," while a woman doing the same is called "emotional," and research on likability has repeatedly found that identical conduct draws different labels depending on who exhibits it. That is not a reason to hide. It means she should take charge of how the moment is framed.

Deloitte's 2025 study of 7,500 women in Virginia and beyond found that 29 percent rate their mental health as poor. No woman seated at that Richmond boardroom table is immune to this. A few of them have been in Lydia's exact position.

The result

In the composite example, Lydia settles on Option C. Before adjourning, the chair tells everyone present, "That was the most candid update this board has received in a year," and asks the director with the pointed questions to submit them in writing. It surprised her. It shouldn't have. Most chairs have endured far rougher sessions, and what stays with them is who pressed forward.

Ultimately it depends on whether you can deliver the sentence without any apology tucked inside it. If you can, say it. If that is beyond you for now, take the break.

Vote

Had you been deciding, would A, B or C have won your vote? Send your letter to your chapter, and we will print the breakdown of votes next month. If you have ever been in Lydia's position, we would welcome hearing from you.