I’ve led global teams, managed programs across continents, and delivered complex, high-stakes projects for some of the biggest MNCs in the world.

But no certification or years of experience prepared me for this one mistake!

No, it wasn’t a technical error. And it wasn’t even a resource issue.

It was a failure to listen to my gut! Or intuition, as they say

So, a few years ago, I was leading a multi-million dollar digital transformation project. Everything looked fine on paper like timelines, budgets, and deliverables. We were in sync with the client, or so it seemed.

But during one of our early review calls, a mid-level engineer quietly mentioned a “potential delay” on a third-party integration. And he said nothing urgent, sir

And I casually ignored it and moved on.

That 5-second hesitation? It snowballed into a ₹25 lakh loss.

The integration didn’t just delay the concern of going live, it broke our contractual SLAs, triggered penalty clauses, and forced my team into crisis mode.

Here, I had missed the most important role of a project leader: creating space for the uncomfortable truth!

What I Learned:

• The biggest risks rarely scream. They whisper.
• A leader’s job is not to stick to the plan, but to challenge it.
• People often tell you what you want to hear—unless you show them it’s safe not to.

Every project manager makes mistakes. This one made me wiser, not just smarter.

So if you’re leading a team today, remember this 👇

“Listen when things are quiet. That’s usually when something’s about to break.”

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