Be tough

Thanks to Jim Cox for pointing me to this article about nice people getting the shaft from bad managers and unscrupulous peers. It’s not a happy story, but it’s an important one.

When I throw down in A Leader’s Manifesto about my conviction that no one should be allowed to manage badly, this is what I’m talking about. This is the kind of chaos that bad managers create. And that chaos is not only the responsibility of the nefarious Doug in the scenario linked above: it’s the spineless Kelly and her boss and his boss, and everyone up the food chain.

And it’s also a cultural construct that we all struggle against, which is that “tough decisions” can only be made by “tough people” — and that anyone who is nice cannot by definition be tough. I used to get this all the time from my bosses at Wizards of the Coast, who were convinced for quite a while that someone with my skills could not make tough decisions: Kelley’s too busy worrying about everyone else’s feelings, or whatever.

Trust me, I can be tough. But for me, “toughness” that creates chaos, rules by fear, allows decisions to be made based on whispered rumors and schoolyard deals, and substitutes yelling for conversation — well, that’s not tough. That’s just a lack of leadership.

There’s not a lot that Stuart could have done by the time he was actually laid off. But I’m willing to bet that Doug didn’t suddenly experience a dramatic personality change that day. My guess is that he’d done that kind of thing before, perhaps even to Stuart or someone on his team, and that he’d been allowed to get away with it.

And that’s where we can all get a little tougher.

My experience is that directly confronting backstabbing behavior — in a way that’s clear and non-aggressive — is often effective. I had a situation in a former job in which Executive A told me of a remark by Executive B that characterized me in an unflattering and weak way. So, right then, I asked A to come with me to B’s office, and then asked B if the report was true. “Because if you believe that”, I said in a neutral voice, “it will certainly affect our working relationship. It will cause you to withhold information and support from me, and that hurts our business. And so if you believe this, you need to help me understand what I can do to alter your perception, so that our work together isn’t jeopardized.”

“Oh, no!” B assured me. “I’m sure I never said that.”

A and B exchanged a look.

“If you did, it’s fine, I just need you to be willing to say it to my face so we can work on it,” I said.

“Oh, no, really….”

I honestly don’t know which of them was telling the truth. It doesn’t matter. I never had that kind of trouble with either one of them ever again.

Sometimes being tough means being right there in the moment, willing to engage with what’s happening, in a way that keeps open the possibility of progress but doesn’t ignore the possibility of bad news. That is a hugely vulnerable thing to be; the best mangers make it look easy and like the only reasonable approach. Find those people in your own organization, and watch how they do it.

Be that kind of tough as often as you can.