Supporting our People: Life is Change
Early in my career, in my 20s, I experienced a tone-deaf manager moment. The experience is one we’ve all had, at some point in our careers, and if you haven’t yet, well… I have no desire to go into the detail, but it involved a line manager demonstrating a shocking lack of empathy at a difficult time in my life, when I was freshly bereaved, broken and grieving.
Later, a similar thing happened when I was in my 30s. This time it was while I was struggling to juggle my role as the mother of young children and an aspiring future leader in communications. A common tale, for many, and sadly I had a manager who just couldn’t do what I needed that person to do: Listen.
Both experiences continue to make me feel unsettled, to make my want to do better for those I have the privilege of leading and managing. As I write, now in my 40s, I am surprised at the strength of feeling that still remains, like I am somehow being pulled down into a murky pool of disquiet and self-doubt.
What unites both experiences is a sense of feeling ignored at a point in time where I needed my manager to listen. I had friends, a supportive family, all the things, but I needed my manager to understand, to reassure me that all would be well, that I just needed to keep doing what I do. Do the work. Deliver great comms.
In our workplace, our manager should be that person, who we trust to support us, challenge us, champion us. Our managers are not there to find the answer, or to tell us what to do and how to do it, necessarily, they should be there to teach us that we can achieve great things in our own way, given the necessary tools: self-confidence and an open mind.
Life has a habit of throwing us the unexpected, sending us off the path we thought we were following. Whether it’s the chaos that is starting a family, moving house, illness, bereavement, or any number of things; much like work the only thing that is certain in life is change.
The great managers I have had are the ones who didn’t try to put me straight back on the same path. They are the ones who paused, helped me catch my breath and find my feet, before enabling me to step onto a new path, that fundamentally led to a more expansive horizon and even bigger opportunities.
I had the privilege of leading a discussion around supporting our people through challenging times, as a manager and leader, in a recent PRCA webinar. If you’re interested in exploring this theme more, you can watch the recording here.