Many cultures make forgiveness a crucial part of their core values. Forgiveness made a vital part of my childhood education, and perhaps because of that, I still hold it amongst my dearest drivers. Today I want to tell you a story on how forgiveness helped me become a better leader in my early career as a manager. It helped me when I stumbled upon an aggressive boss that brought me to the brink of a rather grim burn-out. I want to tell you how forgiveness in the workplace helped me get out of a very difficult dead-end and why I still bring up this story today every time I need to unlock even the most challenging conflicts at work.
Clashing of personalities
I became a manager after a few years as a technical lead of software engineering teams. At that time, leading people meant spending quite a significant amount of time working with my engineers, helping them in their day-to-day work and prioritising their problems above all. I was putting their happiness first, and the burden was such I could not even think about other things than their careers and well-being. I never care much about processes. Rigid team structures and rituals always left me with some doubts. I was a firm believer that motivated teams eventually find the right amount of rules they need to succeed. It was a somewhat naive approach, but it worked. The team delivered and were happiest they were in a while.
That was not the same way as my manager. He mastered planning and organisation and made a point of making his team working as a very well oiled machine. He was running his big organisation with top-down rules that did not leave much space for interpretation. His broader team was also quite successful and was on a mission to grow his managers the same way. That is where problems started.
I started to notice things weren’t right from friendly remarks about my punctuality to meetings. Then the same comments evolved to less subtle reminders that document reports were just not good enough. I initially thought it was a friendly teasing of our differences and missed seeing what was going instead. What I misunderstood as balance, was instead a badly rising rage my manager was hiding as I did not show any sign of compliance with his way of getting work done.
The breaking point
One day we reached a breaking point. At the end of a tough working week, I walked in my manager’s office four our regular one-on-one chat, when I saw his face was somehow different: he was upset about something, and you could read it on his face without even entering the room. I dared to ask what was happened, and all come out in a burst. He told me how I have been disrespectful for showing up in meetings even a minute late or lacking care for not picking up all his suggestions on document edits. His tone then grew from tense to accusatory, with a steady climax that put the monologue to a very loud yelling. I felt it unacceptable and to make things worse the discussion moved on to criticise how my team was working (not enough rules, no daily tracking of performance, too much hands-off), I was fuming!
I felt attacked and demoralised at the same time. My manager, who should have cared for my career and accomplishments, was hating my guts instead! And how should I answer such an enraged discussion? Should I yell back? Quit the room without comment? I decided to harvest all of my patience left and deflect the argument. Took mental notes of the pain shared and asked for some time to reflect on the matter.
That night I had my resignation letter written down, printed and put into an envelope. I could not see any possible future with a manager that I could not see supporting me in any possible way. Until I stopped and asked myself: what if…?
Turning the tide
What if I was wrong? There was no excuse for being aggressive and abused his position as manager, but what if I could not see the big picture of what was going on? I had to say something about this, it was NOT Ok, but starting the conversation by making the first step forward seemed the right thing to do. I was also sure that I could not just burst out as my manager did before, and as hard as it seemed, before being heard, I had to give something to the conversation. I have to share something that allows me to forgive him for a split second and make an effort to understand him better. The next day, I came back and brought the list of personal critiques I received and asked for suggestions. What could I improve what he believed I could do that would make things better? Hearing that was as hard as the previous day, and I was determined to push for a change this time. I shared with him how I felt about our last discussion, and I agreed with him to make changes on how my way of working together would be going forward. What could did not expect was his answer.
I must have completely surprised him because his tone swiftly changed: he humbly apologised for his manners and started to ask me the same questions I did share and make a list of the things he wanted to change. Little by little, over the course of the following months, we kept seeking each other feedback, learned about our struggles to get out of our comfortable leadership schemes. We started to earn back that respect that shattered in that awful first argument, and transformed what was a severed relationship in something where both could learn and grow.
By the time I left the company, he was not my manager any more, and still, we kept chatting regularly about our challenges at work and growing our relationship by the day. We formed a bond of trust and mutual respect that runs still very warm today.
Building Resilience in the Workplace
You may have read many articles about why people leave their jobs. Bad managers, toxic company cultures and wrong job positions are making the top charts in these statistics. Some things are tough to change, like a team culture or an aggressive manager. Sometimes, the job role isn’t right: not giving you space to grow or not using the best of your skills. I don’t hold the secret recipe to make you happy in your role no matter what. I hope this story taught you instead that there are a good number of things that are under your control. How you relate to people in your life and work can make a huge difference in your connections and the way you build your resilience at work. Every day the decision is yours: to listen, to judge, to forgive.
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