I’ve noticed that the most common conversation we seem to have about executives is what they are doing wrong. We lambast them for their indecisiveness or their stubborn aloofness, but we rarely acknowledge the great ones. The ones who inspire us. We rarely look at what we do that makes the life of an exec difficult. This article is intended to make us all think about things a little differently.
It’s quite likely that when you first walked into your current employer’s office you met a line manager or a team leader who helped welcome you. It is also quite likely that when you first saw an executive it was at a distance, with someone softly, and with reverence in their voice pointing in their direction. You may also have received a veritable shopping list of the current political landscape; including whether you should hate or love that exec. Your side of this political arena now essentially decided. Your views on whether you’ll help or hinder now largely created.
It’s also likely that you haven’t even met this person. I repeat. This person. Someone with a family. Someone with friends. Someone who might be a volunteer fire fighter. A cub scout leader. A mentor. A blood donor. Someone who is working hard to keep the company you are now in running so you can keep that job you’ve just started. And already you are afraid of them.
An exec’s life centres on trying to make the right decisions. Good execs accept and admit that they won’t always get this right. They are not typically aloof, just time-poor. The exasperated look you might get as you ask them question after question in the lift about your project is not typically disdain. It is often disappointment in their own environment that they can’t give you more time to talk things through that matter to you. Most good execs want to motivate you, inspire you, help you develop. Most, however, are just keeping up with the thousands of decisions each day they are faced with just to keep your job there for you.
We can help. Execs are human, and they need our help. If we deliver on time, and help deliver information with insight more than just data, we help them have time to help us. If we approach execs with a “hi, how was your weekend” rather than just “hey, I need this decision from you now” we help humanise the workplace and show them we care.
Oh, and those decisions we keep passing upwards? How many of them could we simply make ourselves? We create work environments that swamp execs because we keep asking them to do our jobs. The most common exasperated plea I hear from executives is simply “why do they keep asking me to make their decisions…I trust them to do their jobs!”. So we can help ourselves and the execs by stepping up, making decisions, and making their lives easier by giving them easier calls to make.
When it’s your turn in those chairs you might see things differently. You might even start to wonder why you’re not invited to Friday drinks all of a sudden. Did you change? No! Just your role. Maybe the way to make execs seem more human is for the rest of us to treat them like humans that matter.
People like us.
