8
At 12:43 a.m., she typed fast and angry, then clicked save instead of send.
The draft burned in her mind all night, a bonfire of accusations that at the time felt like courage. At eight she reread it and saw only smoke. She walked to the team room and asked questions instead, then apologized for what the email would have done. The team told her what they had been afraid to say and what they needed to fix things. The problem took a week to repair; the trust rebuilt faster for having been spared a public fire. That night she created a filter called “Midnight,” routing late emails to drafts by default. Sometimes leadership is a well-placed pause.
