When Praise Feels Like a Threat

We were sitting in a conference room. In person. The kind of meeting where you can't hide behind a muted Zoom square.

Our VP was talking about the work I'd done. How I'd taken her rough ideas for our team's mission and vision and synthesized them into something digestible, something ready for discussion. She said she couldn't have been prepared without my help.

And I wanted to evaporate.

My face went hot. Palms started sweating. I stared at the table hoping it might open up and swallow me. I couldn't make eye contact with anyone because all I could think was ‘they're all rolling their eyes right now. They think this is ridiculous. They're wondering why she's making a big deal out of this.’

I hate when people praise me. Publicly, privately, doesn't matter. My body rejects it on contact.

And I've been trying to understand why.

The Most Vulnerable Emotion

Brené Brown says something that keeps reverberating in my head: "Joy is the most vulnerable emotion we feel."

Every time I hear it, my body nods before my brain does.

She's right. Joy requires presence. It asks us to be fully in a moment without armor, without scanning for the next threat. And when life has trained you to anticipate the drop, letting yourself feel something good can feel reckless.

Praise is joy directed at you. It's someone saying I see you. You did something that mattered.

And if joy requires presence, praise requires letting yourself be seen in a good moment.

For people wired like me, that feels like standing in a spotlight waiting for someone to drop the curtain.

What We're Really Protecting Against

That conference room moment wasn't really about humility. It was about control.

Here's what was actually happening in my head… ‘Someone in this room thinks I don't deserve this. Someone thinks this is too much. Someone is keeping score and they just added a point that I didn't earn.’

So I needed to get there first, to reject it before they could. Dismiss it before it could be taken away. Manage the narrative before someone else shaped it.

It's the emotional equivalent of never letting yourself get comfortable in a job because you assume you'll get laid off eventually anyway. (LOL)

Here’s the deeper fear. If you let praise land, if you let yourself feel proud, even briefly, you have something to lose. You've admitted that something good happened. And now you have something to lose.

Joy makes you vulnerable because good things can be taken away.

So it feels safer to just... not let it in to begin with.

The Agency Connection

Last week I wrote about agency. How, after getting laid off, I realized that I didn't have control over what happened to me, but I had capacity to respond.

Agency isn't about controlling outcomes. It's about protecting enough space that you can choose how you show up.

But here's what’s uncomfortable to me. When I deflect praise, I'm giving away my agency over my own narrative.

Someone is offering me evidence of my impact. They're saying, "This thing you did mattered. It helped. It was good."

And I'm saying, "No thanks. I prefer my story that I’m flying by the seat of my pants and probably got lucky."

I thought I was being humble. Or realistic.

But actually? I was outsourcing my sense of worth to my harshest inner critic and calling it "staying grounded."

What This Means for Leadership

This part stings a little.

1. I'm never fully present in success.

If I can't receive praise, even in good moments, I'm bracing. If I'm always bracing, how do I help my team savor anything?

2. I'm modeling something I don't believe in.

When I dismiss my contributions, I'm teaching the people around me that we don't acknowledge our own impact. That pride is dangerous.

3. Praise is a loop.

I've always thought I was generous with praise. But now I wonder, if I can't receive it, am I giving it in a way others can actually receive? Or am I just projecting my own discomfort onto them?

4. That old competitive wiring still hums quietly.

I genuinely want everyone to win. But in the moment of being praised, a tiny voice whispers: Someone is keeping score. You're taking up too much space.

It's exhausting. And untrue. And very, very human.

The Practice

So here's what I'm trying to learn: receiving praise might be a skill. Like making hard decisions, or having difficult conversations, or any of the other uncomfortable things leaders have to get good at.

It's not about believing I deserve it. (That feels too big, too loaded.)

It's about learning to let it exist without immediately smashing it into a hundred pieces.

When someone praises me, my reflex is to deflect, dismiss, redirect. To make it smaller so it feels safer.

But what if I just... didn't?

What if I said "thank you" and let it land? What if I let there be a beat of silence where the good thing just gets to be without me managing it?

What if the question isn't "do I deserve this?" but "can I let this moment be true without needing to control what comes next?"

I'm not good at this yet. I still go red. I still stare at tables.

But I'm starting to understand that this matters. Not just for me, but for the people I lead. For the culture I'm helping create.

Because if I can't make room for joy… real, grounded, undefended joy… how can I possibly create space for my team to feel it?

If I'm always braced for disaster, how can I help others be present for success?

And if I can't let praise land on me, how can I give it in a way that actually lets others receive it?

A Question for You

What praise have you deflected recently?

Not because you were being humble. But because letting it in felt dangerous.

What were you protecting yourself from?

And what might become possible if you let it land, even for a moment, without needing to control what comes next?