The Weight of the Seat

The Weight of the Seat

Seat Three: Expanding the Table

Everyone wants the seat.  Until they discover what comes with it. 

From a distance, it looks like success. 

The promotion. 

The title. 

The office. 

The business with your name on the door. 

The invitation to the meeting you used to wonder why you weren't included in. 

The moment someone finally turns to you and asks, 

"What do you think?" 

You wanted this.  You worked for this.  You earned this. 

So why does it sometimes feel so damn heavy? 

Because nobody tells you about the weight of the seat. 

We talk a lot about getting there. 

How to build confidence. 

How to advocate for yourself. 

How to stop waiting until you're perfectly qualified. 

How to walk into rooms where no one thought to invite you. 

I've talked about it, too. 

Claim the seat.

But claiming it is only the beginning. 

Because eventually, something changes.  People start looking at you. 

For the answer. For the decision. For reassurance. For direction. Sometimes for permission. 

And suddenly you realize: 

You're not trying to get into the room anymore.  You're responsible for what happens inside it. 

The View Changes From Here

Leadership has an interesting way of looking glamorous from everywhere except the chair itself. 

People see the announcement. They see the promotion. The successful event. The growing company. The full room. The polished presentation. 

The photograph where everyone looks incredibly happy to be there. 

They don't see the conversation that happened five minutes earlier. Or the decision you made at 2:00 that morning. 

They don't see the person you had to disappoint. The budget you had to defend. The employee you worried about. The mistake you replayed all the way home. 

The moment you sat alone and wondered: 

Did I make the right call?

That's the weight. 

And sometimes, particularly for women, we make that weight even heavier. 

We don't just want to lead well. We want everyone to be okay with the way we're leading. We want to make the decision and soften the decision. 

Set the boundary and make sure no one feels badly about the boundary. 

Take charge without appearing controlling. Be confident without seeming arrogant. Be ambitious without becoming threatening. Be direct—but still likable. 

And somewhere along the way, leadership quietly becomes emotional labor. 

We carry the room. 

And then we carry everyone's reaction to the room. 

I know something about carrying too much. 

For a long time, I thought competence meant being able to handle it. 

Whatever it was. 

Give it to me. I'll figure it out. I'll fix it. I'll make the call. I'll stay late. I'll make sure everyone is comfortable. 

I'll make sure nobody notices how hard any of this actually is. 

There is a certain pride in becoming the person everyone knows they can count on. 

Until you realize you've trained everyone to count on you for everything. 

That isn't leadership. That's exhaustion with a good résumé. 

Every Seat Has a Weight Limit

There is a lesson I think many of us learn later than we should: 

Being capable of carrying something doesn't automatically make it yours to carry. 

That's a hard distinction for high-achieving women. Because capability becomes part of our identity. We become the fixer. The organizer. The connector. The one who remembers. The one who anticipates. The one who notices the thing nobody else noticed. 

And because we're good at it, more gets handed to us. 

Eventually, we start picking things up before anyone even asks. 

But leadership isn't carrying everything yourself. Leadership is deciding which weight is yours to carry—and which weight belongs back in the hands of others. 

And then comes the harder realization. 

Maybe the seat was never supposed to be about how much you could carry in the first place. Maybe it was about what you could change from there. 

Look Around the Table

There comes a point in leadership when the question has to change. 

It can no longer be: How do I keep my seat?

It has to become: Who isn't sitting here?

Look around. 

Who gets invited into the conversation? Whose opinion carries weight? Who gets interrupted? Who gets credited? Who gets mentored? Who gets introduced? Who gets told, "You should apply"? And who is standing just outside the room doing exactly what you once did— waiting for someone to notice that they're ready? 

This is where leadership becomes something more than achievement. This is where the seat becomes influence. 

I think about the rooms I've been in where there technically wasn't anything stopping women from participating. 

No sign on the door. No written rule. No one saying, You don't belong here. It was much quieter than that. 

The relationships had already been formed. The introductions had already happened. The golf foursome was full. The dinner invitation had already gone out. The table wasn't closed. There simply wasn't another chair. 

And when that happens often enough, something dangerous occurs. We stop questioning it. We start accepting the architecture of the room as truth. 

Maybe there just isn't enough room.

There is. 

Sometimes someone just has to move a chair. 

Your Seat Was Never Meant to Be the Finish Line

There is something incredibly powerful about claiming a place nobody intended to give you. But there is something even more powerful about what you do once you're there. 

You can protect your position. Or you can use it. 

You can become the gatekeeper who once kept you outside. Or you can hold the door. 

You can be relieved that you made it into the room. Or you can turn around and ask: Who's coming with me?

That's Seat Three. 

Not giving your seat away. Not diminishing what you earned. Not apologizing for occupying space. 

Expanding it. 

Pulling out another chair. Making the introduction. Saying her name when she's not in the room. Inviting the younger woman into the conversation before she believes she's ready. Opening the network you've spent years building. Telling someone, "Sit here," before she has to ask whether she belongs. 

That's influence. 

Maybe That's Why the Seat Feels Heavy

Perhaps the weight isn't there to punish us. Perhaps it's there to remind us that the seat matters. That decisions made from it affect people. That voices amplified from it travel farther. That an introduction made from it can change a career. That a door opened from it can change a life. 

Maybe that's the responsibility nobody talks about when we're fighting so hard to get there. The seat isn't just a reward. It's stewardship. And stewardship asks something of us. 

It asks us to notice. It asks us to remember. It asks us not to become so comfortable inside the room that we forget what it felt like to stand outside of it. 

So yes!

Claim your seat. Sit fully in it. Stop apologizing for the space you occupy. Build the company. Lead the meeting. Make the decision. Say the thing. 

Put your name on the door. But once you're there— look around. 

Because the measure of your leadership may not ultimately be how long you managed to keep your seat. 

It may be how many chairs appeared because you sat there. 

The table was never too full.

Someone just had to decide to make room.

And now? 

That someone might be you.

The Conversation Continues

The Atlantic Club was built around a simple belief: the seat is not the destination.

It is where a different conversation begins.

So far, we have explored three of those conversations.

Seat One: Claiming the Seat
The moment we stop waiting to feel ready. When permission is no longer the prerequisite and we begin choosing ourselves.

Seat Two: Keeping the Seat
What happens after the applause fades. When the room gets quiet, the expectations get louder, and we begin discovering who we are when there is no longer anyone telling us what comes next.

Seat Three: Expanding the Table
The moment our success stops being only about us. When we recognize the influence that comes with the seat—and decide to use it to make room for someone else.

And there is still one conversation ahead.

Seat Four: Legacy
What remains because you were here?

That is the conversation at the heart of The Atlantic Club.

Not simply how women get into rooms of influence.

But what happens when we do.

How we claim the seat.

How we grow into it.

How we use it.

And eventually, what we leave behind because we occupied it.

Because perhaps leadership was never really about earning a place at someone else's table.

Perhaps it was about becoming the kind of woman who changes the table itself.

Uninvited. Seat Claimed. Table Expanded.