Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

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I wrote this series to try to give you some background into what has happened to me in the past, with the acknowledgment that this is something that the Lord is continuing His work on me in the present.

It would be one thing if this happened way back when and did not recur, but the fact that I’ve come into many different circumstances where I the underling was placed into a position where I was in charge, only to train someone to replace me and then feel as if the person replacing me is micromanaging me or I have a feeling of superiority where they shouldn’t be one… this prompted me to write of my experience with a look back (and forward) of some bits of advice that I could offer someone going through a similar circumstance, with the hopes that we’ll get it right the next time it happens.

1. You Are Not Indispensable

One of the things that has always stuck with me from my leadership training was that you were not supposed to ever make yourself indispensable.  This is actually much more difficult than it sounds.

There is a great deal of comfort in being the-only-one-who-knows-how-to-do-X for the simple reason that you can believe that they cannot lay you off if you’re the sole source of that knowledge.  This, of course, assumes that your knowledge is important, and that keeping you for that knowledge is better than laying  you off and working around it.

And it’s also a fallacy to some degree.  Most things can be learned by a person at or above your skill level, and the fact that you aren’t sharing with your team means that you aren’t helping to train others.  Being a good teammate and a source of information—being approachable—is much more valuable to the company than the-skill-that-no-one-else-has.

2. Know Your Place

This is the one I really struggled with in the story I just recounted.  It wouldn’t have occurred to me that I was being rebellious when I tried to make our days more tolerable fun simply because I was trying to make the best of a good situation.  However, I wasn’t thinking of others first.  I was concerned about myself and my crew, but I wasn’t thinking about how to reach the manager, I was thinking about how to work around him.

This isn’t good.

The manager is there to help provide a sense of order to the chaos.  However, there are many times that you are going to have a manager or leader above you that may not be as competent a leader as you are.

That does not give you the right to go around them or condescend to them.  This will only create more hardship.  What you need to do instead is spend time helping to get better at what they are doing.

Are they new to your group’s process? Help them to work in the process and show them the advantages of doing so.

Are they having trouble putting together specs? Offer them the view that you have, but be prepared if they decide to go in an entirely different direction.

The point is, let them have access to your skills and abilities, but keep in mind that they have the final say, even though you disagree.

3. Get Everything In Writing

If you really think that you disagree with a decision made by management—make sure that you get what they requested in writing.  If you could get it signed off that would be even better.  Use something that keeps track of things permanently, and document what you’re doing well.

In the end, if your comments and theirs are documented (e-mails can get lost!) in your process the odds are that you can refer back to them or use them to explain your decisions.

4. Document What You Do

If you’re going to deviate from what they’ve required, make sure that you accurately detail why.  It may save both you and them frustration if you carry out the work that you are assigned to the best of your ability, noting in documentation where you deviated instead of confronting at design—if you have not been invited to design meetings.

The point is, it’s best to be the worker that carries something to completion, and has to have something corrected at some point than to be the one that seems contrarian and never complies.  Best to be the person that gets the job done.

5. Be Aware of Your Testimony

Make sure that, in all of your dealings with coworkers and your managers, that you have a good testimony.  Make sure that you don’t gossip to tear down your manager behind their backs.  My father says that he never says anything about a person behind their back that he wouldn’t say in their presence.  I think this is a pretty smart goal.

Make sure that your actions in front of your manager do not convey condescension, but have the best of the team in mind.  Present ideas, and if they don’t go anywhere, document them.  There will always be things that someone who is actually carrying out the task will understand better than someone that is seeing it from a higher level.

Conclusion

To boil all this down, the point is that this is something you can’t hide from.  Changing jobs will only delay it, and unless you become your own boss, you will probably always have someone over you.  And even if you do become your own boss, your clients become your boss—I’m sure that also can make things difficult.

Dealing with people with a sin nature is difficult, because we have a sin nature as well.  The important thing to realize is our position before God, where He has placed us, and to make sure that we do not sin in our reactions to what is happening around us.

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