Another Axe to Grind: Managers Joining the Pity Party

Okay, so I have another axe to grind – is that anything new? It’s about people in leadership positions joining the pity party with their complaining and disengaged team members – sharing the gripes they have with their company and with their managers with people who report to them or are junior to them.

This is just not okay on any level. When one takes on a leadership role, one becomes a role model. It’s not something you get to accept or decline – it goes with the job. Your people watch you all the time, and what they see you do becomes what they do. Managers are part of the management team – they represent the management of the business. This means that they need to represent that team in a mature manner. When managers gripe and complain, the impact is far greater than one might assume:

1. It ramps up any feelings of dissatisfaction more junior team members might have about the organisation – so minor irritations become major issues;
2. It legitimizes any unreasonable gripes team members might have;
3. It drags down the energy of the team;
4. It causes previously satisfied or neutral team members to join the pity party too;
5. It costs managers the respect of their team members. In a sense, because the manager is sharing too much, it becomes a form of “familiarity breeding contempt”;
6. It makes it difficult to get the work done because of the low energy and general disengagement.

So what is a manager to do when she is hacked off with her boss or her company? Am I saying that there is nothing you can do? Absolutely not. There is always something you can do. I remember the words of a mentor from many years ago. She said “We always have three choices. We can change it. We can live with it. Or we can get out.” Here’s my take on those three choices:

1. Change it. Discuss your issues with appropriate people in an attempt to change the situation and recommend improvements. Appropriate people might be your peers, your manager or another decision-maker or influencer in the business. If this doesn’t work, perhaps you could change the way you think about the situation. Test the assumptions you are making. Are they accurate, or are they completely untested assumptions about other people’s motives or intentions? Could you make another assumption that would enable you to look at the situation in a different light? Could you offer team members another way of looking at things so that they are not dragged down by their own untested assumptions? Could you encourage them that “this too shall pass”? What can you do to improve things?
2. Live with it. In this case, you are choosing to do nothing. If you choose to do nothing, then stop whining!
3. Get out. If the situation is costing you your happiness, your sanity or your marriage, get out. Find another job – in another company or in another division.

Regardless of which choice you decide to exercise, it is better for a manager to keep his own counsel than to share his gripes with his juniors. Just because it passes through your mind, doesn’t mean it should pass through your lips! Your job is to keep people focused and energised. How can you possibly do this if you have joined the pity party?