I Am Who I Am

“I don’t want to be jealous, but I think that maybe I am.”

This admission came from a vice president at a national non-profit organization. In the past year, he had moved from running the main communications arm of the organization into a more specialized role, designing specific strategies to move his coalition into the 21st Century.

“Michael” has the most fascinating background of almost anyone I know. Peace Corps volunteer, newspaper correspondent and editor, university instructor, fellowship grantee, government consultant, television news producer and more. He has a talent for taking complex ideas and situations and presenting them in a way that is accessible to people of every stripe. He exhibits a sense of empathy and patience, knowing what context his audiences need to understand the issues and challenges before them.

Ironically, that patience and empathy often go missing inside an office. Michael can whip up at least three fresh strategic ideas each day, with a clear vision of how to put them in motion. Yet he becomes extremely impatient when his managers or senior executives fail to understand or quickly enact his plans. That impatience has surfaced everywhere he has worked.

Another piece of irony: Michael has a gift for supervising and developing subordinates. He listens completely, encourages dissent, welcomes creative thinking, is generous with appreciation and credit AND fights hard to get his staff the resources and promotion they deserve.

But Michael has no interest in nor time for “managing up,” as the saying goes. He figures that anyone on the executive level should automatically know what they're doing and it's not his job to teach them.

Whatever else one might say about Michael’s executive officers, they deserve credit for recognizing that Michael’s strategic talents might best be utilized in a position less likely to generate so much friction between him and his higher-ups. And thanks to his staff development efforts, one of Michael’s direct reports needed little grooming to move into the vice presidency vacancy created by Michael’s transition into his new role.

Which brings us back to the matter of jealousy. Michael’s replacement is having much more success in persuading senior management to consider and try new communications models – models that usually come from Michael’s new office.

“I don’t understand why they listen to her when they wouldn’t listen to me,” he said.

“What does she do that is different?” I asked.

“Well, she listens to all their asinine objections, even when she knows they’re wrong. She compliments them about their input and observations. She almost never says ‘no’ to any of their requests, even when it might jeopardize a more important project.”

“Hmmm. Seems like she had a great teacher.”

Michael paused, then laughed. “Yeah, I guess that sounds a lot like the way I treated my old staff.”

Michael recognized the patterns of his behavior, the good and the bad. He’d always had a reputation for being a wonderful boss, and at the same time, he’d had problems with authority all his working life. He knew he did his best work when given space and autonomy.

Michael recognized his patterns. And he recognized that after all these years, he had no desire to change them. Even in service of a better title and a bigger pay check. He had the self awareness to know what he was willing to do, and what he was not.

He’d just lost sight of that reality for a moment, even as he was taking pride in the accomplishments of his former manager.

“Still jealous?” I asked.

“Maybe a little,” he smiled. “But I think it’s under control.”