You’re probably right

You’re probably right: That coworker you work with is incompetent. The employee you manage does have a bad attitude. Your boss should appreciate how hard you work. And your company isn’t paying you enough.

Now that we’ve established how right you are, what’s next? You can congratulate yourself for being right. But that affords limited satisfaction. Your situation won’t improve until you do something different. Sorry. It’s not fair. But your attitude is what will change your reality.

So accept that you are right, and get ready to respond to the difficult people at work differently.

0 thoughts on “You’re probably right

  • Hi Katherine,

    I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic. Ultimately you can only control yourself, right? Yet the behavior you describe can severly inhibit the REAL work you’re trying to accomplish. Everyone seems to have the capacity to see clearly when it comes to someone else’s incompetence, but there seems to be very little self examination going on. Like horses wearing blinders, our directors and team leaders continue to plow, not even looking back to see where the rest of the team is. Each team member is furiously working at their own tasks, oblivious to what the other team members are doing. Are we close to accomplishing the goal? Was there a goal? This is said to the back end of the horse that continues to plow without ever looking back. It works so much better (in my opinion) when we all know where we’re going, and we talk about it. But lately, work has become more about doing all of the prep work and no actual cooking. It hurts employee moral, it weakens the team committment, it cultivates a “Well, I can’t do anything about it anyway,” type of attitude which descends into deeper dysfunction. The Horses wearing the blinders are setting the tone. What truth should I speak to this power?

    • Thanks for your comment. You’re describing an all too common experience these days. The problem is that many of those horses with blinders are operating from a fear-based motivations. It actually is important to acknowledge that your perceptions about the lack of leadership are dead on. At the same time, once we can agree that you are right, the next step has to do with personal responsibility. What can you do today to embody the change that you’d like from others? And if you don’t like the leadership, are you willing to strike out and lead (or find a better leader) on your own? Part of getting to a point of action is not forcing solutions, but looking your current reality straight in the face and coming to a decision regarding how you want to deal with it.

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