Bringing down the Ivory Towers

A friend of mine is by personality the kind of person that demands very little from others. You know the kind of person that is content with very little for themselves and everything else for others. For him there are no pretenses or shows, that’s just the way he is. Often I have wondered how one can be so selfless; but truth be told, we are amazingly different as a human tribe. You can imagine how surprised I was when this friend one day announced that he would leave the job he held.

This was totally off character and when I had picked my jaw off the floor, I had the sense to ask what drove the sudden shift. This friend of mine narrated a story of a particularly unfair practice at their workplace and though he had tried to endlessly rationalise he had come to the conclusion that it was a hopeless situation in which the boss seemed hell bent to keep their head deeply buried in the sand and serve their own interests.

Now, I must say whenever I met my friend’s boss, I thought they were wonderful and I admired them immensely, so I was quite taken aback by the revelations, that blow by blow demonstrated how short sighted and ill-focused the boss was. I almost all but lost the admiration I had held for them through the years.

This experience got me reflecting on how often we have heard the phrase that people do not leave institutions or companies they leave their bosses. Cliché, yes but you know, I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that it holds significant substance. To be fair there are often a myriad of reasons that make many bosses or supervisors terribly poor at their job. Primarily, I believe most of them do not quite understand or recognise their own blind spots or limitations. Somehow some imagine that because they have some qualification or achieved certain success in previous roles, any other assignment will be a walk in the park. Often you will hear them brag about how complex their previous assignments were in comparison to their current role. This particular statement sometimes is proven entirely more fiction than factual.

Many times I think such behaviours are driven by a lack of belief in their own ability or competence. I cannot imagine a conversation for example where a global magnet say for instance Bill Gates or any other massively successful business owner brags on end about how great he is as an entrepreneur. That would beg many questions.

Another major reason that drives such behaviours in leaders is simply because they may not be very healthy. They like everyone else, maybe struggling with battles that no one knows about. I am not trying to excuse the terrible behaviours that we no doubt have all been in the receiving end of on occasion, I am offering a point of view that allows us to understand that leaders also struggle with existence and leading. They are after all 100 per cent human, irrespective of how horrid behaviours demonstrated get; they too deserve grace and mercy.

The question we as leaders must ask ourselves when we are confronted with such circumstance is; how do we ensure that we do better at leading than the poor examples we have experienced? Here are three suggestions;

1. Learn to listen more and talk less – recognising that everyone has something to offer irrespective of whatever prejudices we may hold, is the ultra demonstration of humility.

2. Deeply respect people. Ensure that your position, role or title does not get into your head to the extent that you become dismissive and intolerant. If you are the type of leader who never listens for a minute without interrupting, that you literally have to hold your hand over your mouth when others talk, heed oh thee, I am addressing you here.

3. Value your people. By this I don’t mean the lip service we often experience in workplaces that speaks a great message but under scrutiny fails the test. This means having a deep appreciation of the people around you in their total and complete humanness. It means understanding that all have fallen short of glory and none is perfect.

It means demonstrating a compassion that stubbornly refuses to constantly kick others in their gut, that resists the urge to persistently complain about the shortcomings of others. A conscience that deeply examines itself and appreciates its own imperfections.

From the beginning of time, I would like to imagine that we all agree there exists no human above reproach, so, get off your high horse and remember they say, if serving is below you, leadership is beyond you.