You Forgot the Comment. They Didn’t.

It usually takes less than ten seconds. A sharp remark in a meeting. A "joke" about a mistake, delivered in front of the whole team.

The leader moves to the next agenda item. By lunch, they've forgotten it happened.

The person on the receiving end hasn't.

I've seen this gap play out across corporate America more times than I can count. One person files it under "Tuesday." The other files it under "who I am here."

If a comment someone else forgot is still replaying in your head, hear this: you are not too sensitive, and you are not making it bigger than it was. "Someone can experience a comment as humiliating even when the speaker didn't intend humiliation. That doesn't make the impact imaginary."

My new Influential Women piece covers why it lingers, what it quietly costs teams, a simple framework for leaders I call The Repair Window (Notice, Name, Repair, Change), and steps for recovering from a moment you can't forget.

Leaders: can you name the last time you said something sharp in a meeting? If not, is that because it didn't happen, or because you didn't notice?

Link in the first comment.