Bring Your Leader to Me
Tell Them I Sent You
Next week, in all likelihood, I’ll be on the phone having a conversation like this.
“So, you’ve been hanging around for years, resisting my hints and jabs. I’m going to ask again, one last time: are you, or are you not, going to start managing this team?”
Silence. Like it’s a movie.
“Yes,” I’ll say, because it’s time. Because my resolve to do good has left me, and I show up each day doing only what’s needed to continue showing up the next day, and little more. Because I’m in a unique position to help other people as I’ve been helped, and that’s something I want to do. Because I want more money.
I’ve resisted the call to managment for five years. I had no interest in telling people what to do and how to do it; I just wanted to do. To work. To act, not to direct. However, I’ve long since started telling people what to do and how to do it, long since stopped working in any significant capacity, and long since started directing rather than acting. I’ve done so without the support a manager might receive, without the authority a manager might call upon, and without the salary a manager might earn. I have also managed to sidestep late nights, the travel, and the on-call emergencies reserved for ladies and gentlemen with Blackberries and frequent-flier miles and the Rolodex of Those Who Might Fix What’s Broken. I was, for a time, happy to remain hidden from scrutiny; I have, however, operated under the watchful glare of Those Who Scrutinize for longer than not. I have been the understudy on stage. No longer.
It’s both momentous and trivial: I’ll attend more meetings with a broader swath of The Company’s decorated; and I’ll merely formalize most of what I’ve been doing anyway. Yet for all that’s superfluous, all its baubles engraved with “Success” and “Vision” and “Drive,” it’s the right time and the right move. Not because The Company deserves my heady proclamations; not because our Clients serve a greater good; but because it’s the only thing I haven’t tried, and because there are three other people who show up every day and try to their wits’ ends not to scream because, yes, this Very Large Project will only sell if we can Make Up Convincing Shit. Making shit up is overrated as a good time; try doing it 40 hours a week. Try explaining the sordid litany of exceptions and special circumstances and system hacks and back-room conferences that went into all that shit, and then try to treat it as a stable foundation on which to build a career. Don’t try it, actually; I have, and I can help you avoid it.
And that’s it, that’s why I’m going to manage these folks. Each of them has strengths and weaknesses, and I have The Vision to see them and what they need. If I am to give to them what I’ve received from others, I can’t do it hiding behind a curtain, mouthing the words and toe-tapping the steps. If I’m to save them from wasting their daylight servicing belligerent chaos, I can’t do it as one of them. I have to lead. And lead I will.
I also might get an iPhone. But mostly it’s all that dramatic stuff.
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