The number one reason I hear from my coaching clients for dissatisfaction in their current roles is that they are working for someone who doesn’t understand and support them.
A research led by TinyPulse in 2018 cites how employees feel about their direct managers as the number one reason why people leave companies. This comes before compensation, recognition and growth.
It’s a huge responsibility to manage people. Unfortunately, companies often state that the only way to have career growth is that you have to manage a team. Many people are woefully unsuited or underprepared to be able to do that. We invest in people manager training often at a superficial level, concentrating on what to do in extreme situations like having to deal with harassment or at practical levels like filling out performance reviews. What we don’t often teach managers is how to care.
As humans we have a fundamental need to feel connection. To feel heard. To feel understood. To feel that someone else cares.
This doesn’t switch off just because we have taken off our ‘at home persona’ and put on our ‘at work persona’. We spend our days at work surrounded by other human beings. Other people who are dealing with the same complexity of human condition that we are. People who are experiencing extreme sadness, insecurity, fear, loneliness. People who are having moments of joy and pride and excitement. People…
As leaders of these people, it is our responsibility to show up as human. In both my personal career and my professional experience , leaders who are able to show up as human beings who care about other people are the ones that matter. The ones that people talk about as inspiring, the ones that they want to emulate.
On the flip side, people also talk about the ones who have displayed the worst characteristics of human nature and how utterly demoralizing and disruptive that can be. The ones who take your work and put their name on it, the ones who don’t support you because they don’t appreciate your different working style, the ones who subconsciously or consciously discriminate against you. The effect of these types of managers is truly disruptive.
It is your choice as to which kind of leader you want to be. Are you able to show up as a human being, with all the potential vulnerability that brings with it?
To make it real, I’d like to share a couple of examples of leaders in my life who showed up as human and who made a meaning difference in my career and life. I have been fortunate to have worked with many great managers but there are 3 moments which were seminal for me.
When I was in my early 20s, I lived and worked in Milan. I worked for a newspaper group that was going ‘online’ in 1999. I was taken on to help get this mini start up wing of the company going. We were a tight knit group of young people, essentially winging it, having a good time and working hard. At one point, out of the blue, I got a phone call that my mother had suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a life-threatening stroke that affects the brain. My family were still based in Ireland, so I left immediately to go home to be with them. What followed were days and then weeks and then months of uncertainty, fear and sadness as we waited for my mother to undergo dangerous surgery, an induced coma and relearn to talk and walk and just be.
It was all consuming and I needed to be there for my family.
The worry of what would happen with my job could have been an additional massive layer of stress. Instead, my manager at the time, Marco Paggiaro, simply said ‘Don’t worry, we will make it work’. He found ways to allow me to take the time off I needed and checked in occasionally to see if he could help. He recognized the importance of what I was experiencing as a human being. As a result, I was able to support my family during this crucial time and come back to my job feeling ok. I worked my proverbial off for them from that moment on. Marco, thank you for your support and kindness during the worst time of my life.
Later in my career, when I worked at eBay in the UK office, I was fortunate to be there at a time when a special group of people and leaders came together. Some of the best people I have ever worked with my entire career. There are two that really stand out for me.
I had my first child about 2 years after joining eBay. I was career focused gal and I wanted to progress and become a great leader myself. My manager at the time was a fantastic French man called Francois Coumau. When I was about 5 months into my pregnancy, he told me about an opportunity to work on a big, cross functional, global project during a crucial turnaround period. I was worried about the amount of work it would involve and whether I had the ability to see it through. He listened and told me that I could do it, that it would be worth it and that it was a great opportunity. He believed in me and supported me, and it was one of the most rewarding projects I ever worked on.
He is also the person that gently sat me down a month after I came back from maternity leave when I had burst into tears in our 1-2-1 and explained a secret to me. He told me that all new mums come back to work and hit a wall a month or two in when they feel that they are doing it all wrong. They fell like they are being a crap mother, they are being a crap employee, it’s all falling apart. He handed me a Kleenex and told me that I was ‘normal’ but also that I was a great mum and a stellar employee and to keep at it. It was a moment of kindness and humanity that has stuck with me and I have made it a point to seek out new parents coming back to the workplace and share the same ‘secret’. Francois, thank you for your compassion and kindness.
The final person, that comes to mind is a woman who was also a leader at eBay in the UK. Whenever, I talk to any colleagues from that time, men and women, they mention this person as one of best people they have worked for. So much so that many people followed her to her next gig. This person seemed to be able to do it all – lead at a super young age, manage very small children, take on a huge leadership role with finesse and strength. I kind of wanted to hate her. What saved her from that fate, was her ability to show her human side. She made a point of talking to employees about how hard she was finding it to balance her family and her career. She gave everyone an equal shot. When she was giving her leaving speech, I don’t think I have ever seen so many grown adults blubbling away alongside her.
On a personal level, I hit a crisis of confidence during a period of restructure when my manager at the time was being the opposite of supportive. It had got so bad that I had made up my mind to leave. When she found out about this, she sent me an email and said we had to meet. She was at home because she had broken her leg (or maybe her arm?) skiing but she came into the office specifically to have this conversation. She listened to me intently and then she told me that I was mad (did I mention she’s Irish?), that I was hugely valued in the company and that she would make it work for me to have a great position in the reorg. She is the reason I stayed, and I went on to stay for 11 years. Claire Gilmartin, I can’t thank you enough for showing so many of us how to lead with strength and humanity. Trainline are lucky to have you.
Show your humanity. Be the leader who makes people want to talk about you years later because of it. Be the person that people want to say thank you to.