Chivalry.
A theory as to the origin of the military salute with the hand is that it traces back to the knights.
As a knight approached a stranger, he would raise his hand to tilt his visor up, exposing his eyes, and therefore his life.
Demonstrating he meant no harm to the other by showing his trust they meant no harm to him.
Chivalry is an act of vulnerability not strength.
Tug of War.
The employer - employee tug of war over bringing the 40% of workers working from home back to the office is a proxy war.
Whether an employee is the 80% disengaged from their work sitting in their cubicle or at their kitchen table is just geography.
The real battle employers ignore is to giving meaningful, purposeful work.
Employers should invest their time and resources in increasing employee engagement.
Something Else.
Take some time to define your reality.
Start with financials.
What are your worldly goods? House? Assets? Liabilities? Income? Superannuation?
Feel your mind and heart move from reluctance, to discomfort, resistance, to denial, to panic, to surrender, to …
Peace.
(Yes - you need to create and commit to several hours to allow this process of your head and heart to work fully through.)
You will find yourself sitting in front of a page or three of numbers.
You will wonder how you made it here - given those daunting figures.
But bigger than the numbers and more impressive is:
You.
Your presence transcends and answers all the ‘But how does it all work?’ head stuff.
Only when you allow yourself to admit that, logically, you cannot explain how you got here.
Can you begin to recognise it’s not the dollars and the sense.
Most of it is you: working and saving and budgeting and planning.
But some of it - isn’t.
Something else is guiding you.
Condemnation.
The severest condemnation is reserved for those in positions of power above the operational managerial level who know the managers below them are incompetent, yet do nothing for fear of upsetting those in power above them.
They choose their security over the wellbeing of the workers and those they serve.
Force Multiplier.
How quickly we learn and increase our skill and ability to execute when we are privileged enough to work with another creative, clever, generous mind.
A force multiplier.
Not the artificial and forced ‘team’ that a boss so often shoehorns us into and saps our time and spirit.
An authentic collaboration - col-labour - with another.
Add a third, and a fourth - and a good boss - and we can literally change the world.
Your Second Response.
Our first response to a stimulus is what makes us human.
Our fear, anger, disappointment, or frustration are natural, and embedded in us from tens of thousands of years of evolution.
It’s not reasonable, fair, or healthy to expect us to suppress or deny our first response.
We should give ourselves (and others) permission to feel what are reasonable and natural reactions to the world.
We step back - for a millisecond, second, minute, hour, month - and allow ourselves to feel the first response.
Only then do we respond.
Our first response is what makes us human.
Our second response can lead us to the divine.
Approachability.
The most important quality of a good boss is approachability.
The second is technical competence.
Pointless being good on the tools if we don’t feel comfortable seeking your advice.
Stepping In.
Wise bosses only step in and deploy their authority to resolve a right-versus-right decision impasse.
Bad bosses step in to remind us of their power.
Slow is Fast.
Anyone trying to sell something to you - from cornflakes to god - ignored instinct.
Instead they took the time to take the five steps to a good decision allowing them to decide how to take advantage of you acting on instinct.
Including how to convince you to trust and act on instinct.
Right at Appointment.
It’s said that some are like a broken clock: right twice a day.
Bad bosses are like a frozen digital calendar: right at their appointment.
You Never Had a Chance.
It’s not your lack of qualifications, skills, talent, experience, or work ethic that caused the boss to turn you down for that role.
It’s that you aren’t on the sidelines of his child’s Saturday morning hockey games.
Your father wasn’t a member of Parliament.
You didn’t work with him seven years ago.
You didn’t laugh at his witty asides.
You aren’t at church with him.
You have integrity.
Accessory.
The disengagement from our work begins the first time we suspect we’re an accessory to a lie.
This could be as early as the recruitment interview and as late as the termination letter.
Our mind and soul must reconcile what we know to be true - and what our job compels us to do.
Dis-integrating ourselves from our work allows us to protect our soul from corruption.
Deluded.
Some bad bosses are well-meaning but incompetent.
Most bad bosses are delusional.
They sincerely believe the title ‘Boss’ endows them with unique wisdom and authority to know and see what lesser beings cannot.
Blind to their incompetence and its consequences.
The deluded bad boss cannot be fixed by 360 reviews, or third party culture surveys, or attending professional development.
The only remedy for the destructive effects of a bad boss on people and organisations is for the governing body to remove them.
Assuming of course that the boss of the bad boss isn’t themselves - deluded.