Give Trust Under Pressure, and Empathy When in Doubt
TLDR: Don’t fixate on people who have hurt you in your career, but make sure to remember what they taught you so you don’t repeat their mistake.
Let me share a personal experience with you (told from my experience because I don’t have any other perspective). Years ago my Director was making changes and there was an opportunity for a management position. I was one of a number of people interested in the position, and he had personal interviews with each of us. In the end I was asked to take on this role.
It was a couple of years afterwards, in one of many conversations talking about the intricacies of management and the many lessons I still had to learn, where I learned an uncomfortable truth. He revealed that multiple co-workers had come to him during the hiring process, and made an almost word for word pitch…
“Don’t hire Kevin in this position. You should hire me for the position because I can do it better than he can”
Old Co-Workers
If there were other reasons that they gave, my Director never told me. I take that as a kindness. It was hard to find out that people I considered my friends were willing to step forward and stick the proverbial knife in my back. By then some of these people had moved on to other companies, but some had moved to other positions within the company. I saw them everyday and was working closely with them on some major projects.
The lesson didn’t end there. My manager kept working with me and helped me realize that to hold on to that betrayal would make me less of the manager than I had become and less of a person than I wanted to be. So I looked at the situation, spent time learning about the reasons why people take those types of actions, and hardest of all – figured out how to forgive those people for myself.
“To forgive a friend, one must practice generosity. To forgive an enemy, one must practice empathy. To forgive yourself requires charity. Forgiveness is a sacred act of gallantry.”
– Mac MacKenzie
I looked back on a time even further past where a good friend had been suffering from a debilitating disease, and it was affecting his ability at work, and I had said words similar to theirs. I felt I could do a great job, and I probably could have, but the mistake I made that day was focusing on the “I can do it better than he can”. He wasn’t my opponent. He wasn’t the person I needed to measure up to. I realized I made that mistake too, and I promised myself to use those examples and be better than I had been.
I work with those people, and I am still connected to some of them. I appreciate even more, new people with whom I have made authentic connections. Even more so I try to celebrate and spread acts of decency. I encourage you to do the same. I am sharing these experiences with you because it was a key lesson in Vulnerability for me.
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”
– Brene Brown
I’m not telling you to give unequivocal trust to those who have, or would hurt you. I am saying that we should extend grace to those around us, make sure to protect ourselves, and set the right kind of examples as employers and employees.