Working dynamics
In recent months three of my coaching clients have decided to leave their jobs and their employers. In all three cases their reasons related to the way they were treated at work: one felt diminished (and of course I only have my clients’ perspectives to go on, and not their employers’), shut down and rendered voiceless by their line manager. The other two felt unvalued and unrecognised by their line managers. All were in different organisations, and all were in senior roles.
What has been going on?
From these clients’ perspectives, it has looked like those senior to them have been intent on holding on to control and not hearing views other than their own. As a result, they haven’t been offered ideas, illuminations or insights. Worse, potential or actual errors, and critical organisational knowledge or opportunities for improvement, haven’t been flagged to them. It has looked to each of my clients that those leading and managing them have been predominantly concerned with being seen as ‘right’, with protecting their own internal empires and with self-protection. They have seemed fearful, in some way, of losing power (and I mean ‘power over’, not ‘power with’).
The experience for my clients has been unhappy. To a greater or lesser extent they have felt crushed, sidelined, unseen and voiceless. The impact for two of them, sometimes taking years for them to properly recognise in terms of causality, has been a degree of stress, exhaustion, poor sleep and migraines in one case, and for all of them a loss of engagement, growing passivity, resentment, and a loss of commitment. The consequent loss of their talent to their organisations (and their institutional knowledge and experience once they left their jobs) – and concomitant costs – has been striking to me, and the damage to their health has been concerning to me.
Perspectives
One can look at these situations from a variety of perspectives. One could immediately blame those senior to these three leaders. However, that would miss more systemic or complex explanations. If one looks at these seniors with compassion, the contexts in which they are working and the variety of pressures on them, and expectations of them (which they may not know how to best handle), together with their possible exposure in front of a wider audience, come into view. That exposure might feel like an existential threat, which in turn might provoke a prolonged fight, flight or freeze response, which leads them to closing down what might feel like complicating external factors and voices.
A compassionate view might also consider the conditions of work in the environment and the established culture. When there are staff and resource shortages, when there is significant change happening, or when the culture is one that lacks psychological safety, people are likely to be more stressed and more exhausted, lacking the resourcefulness to stand back and consider their actions and behaviours.
If one seeks the systemic picture, the interdependencies that these seniors are part of come into focus. They may be interdependencies of personal or more distant relationship or context (both internal and external). It might just feel easier to these leaders to shut down what may feel like interference, without seeing the perils of that.
What coach, executive coach, team coach, coach supervisor, and OD practitioner Simon Cavicchia speaks about as a ‘defence against thinking’ might feel like the safest thing to do in a frightening, exposing or puzzling situation.
The dynamics are complex and constantly moving. And of course there are many other approaches to exploring, understanding and handling what is really going on for these seniors.
Options for change
Each of these clients has taken action to distance themselves from the sources of their distress. That is certainly one way of dealing with the situation, albeit it might take some courage. In such situations people can also perhaps design possibilities for creating ‘islands’ in which they have a little autonomy, such as purposefully designing a team culture that is characterised by psychological safety and the opportunity for all voices to be heard.
And as tough as it may be (and depending on the personalities and the situation), how might it have been possible for my clients to seek ways in which to establish better connection with those senior to them, to be more curious and to stimulate more curiosity, and to bring more compassion and more self-compassion into their lives?
We can’t change another person or their behaviour, but they might change (albeit unconsciously) in response to changes in our behaviour.
Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash
