Have you ever danced with a shadow in a spotlight?

Sometimes, what begins as mentorship turns into something else.

A performance.
A projection.
A pattern.

He invites you into the choreography, says you’re talented, different, promising. But slowly, subtly, the dance becomes about his control. Not your growth. Not your excellence. Just his ability to direct it.

And when you stop compensating for his missteps, when you stop pretending his leadership is real, he calls you the problem.

Because the one thing more threatening than failure is a partner who doesn’t need the performance to succeed.

This piece isn’t just about one man. It’s about the quiet abuse masquerading as mentorship, and the systems that reward it.

For every woman who’s had to lead from the second position, hold the line with grace, and still be called “difficult,” this one’s for you.

The world isn’t run by masterminds.

It’s run by men with burner phones, weak alibis, and half-zipped flies.

But sure, tell me again how women are the emotional ones.

We’re long overdue for a reckoning with the kind of man who always ends up in charge:

Articulate, well-funded, and catastrophically under-evolved.

He’ll tell you he’s building an empire.

He’s actually maintaining a cuddle puddle.

He’ll tell you he stands for ethics.

He’s forwarding massage parlor receipts to his work email.

He’ll say he believes in women.

Just not the ones who see through him, or won’t sleep with him.

In my latest article, I unpack The Zipper Class:

The men who can’t keep it zipped, can’t keep it honest, and definitely can’t lead, not in any meaningful way.

From Davos tears to sex toy diversions, it’s not just about infidelity.

It’s about impulse.
Optics.
Cowardice.

And the cost of mistaking charisma for character.

If you’ve ever:

• Been sidelined by someone with worse instincts and better press
• Watched HR operate like a cleanup crew
• Seen an entire firm tiptoe around one man’s fragile ego…

This one’s for you.

Last week, the CEO of a $7B company got caught mid-Coldplay cuddle with his head of HR at a corporate concert outing.

Some called it cringe.
Others called it harmless.
But for many of us, it hit differently.

Because the problem isn’t just the optics.
It’s the message.

When leadership blurs boundaries, power gets personal. And when personal dynamics dictate professional opportunity, women who don’t play the game get left behind, or quietly shown the door.

Let’s stop pretending these are isolated incidents.

There’s a pattern.
There’s a power structure.
And it’s costing companies real talent, real innovation, and real credibility.