Trending in leadership : character

Apparently we're not talking about "personal leadership" anymore. We're talking about character. Which makes sense as prior to this another buzzword was "genuine".

And I keep thinking about Kipling's poem 'If'. Cos, you know how it goes, even if it's about men, being women we're expected to appropriate male things all the time. So in this case even though it's specifically to men, I totally will appropriate it as it's a great poem about character.

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, 

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, 

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken 

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 

And lose, and start again at your beginnings 

    And never breathe a word about your loss; 

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you 

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, 

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 

    If all men count with you, but none too much; 

If you can fill the unforgiving minute 

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

   Very English. Somewhat Buddhist. A more Christian approach would be to cry with others or feel joy with them: a more empathetic approach. I guess it doesn't talk about how to build those relationships with loving friends. Hmmm. So it's not quite all there. I saw a reference to 'Servant Leadership' on the corporate webpage and almost fell off my chair as that's so Christian. But no worries it referenced a Wikipedia article (being challenged from 2012 as being not sufficiently referenced) referring to Chinese philosophers so no danger of that Christian stuff there. 

Still character is an interesting thing to think about. One step, one day, at a time.

Being able to recognise what is happening

It has surprised me that over the last couple of weeks I am hearing more stories of
a) Women actually asking what to do if the workplace is bad
b) Being told bluntly "Leave".

I guess a) surprises me because I never really asked it. I didn't realise I could. I am very happy to hear of it being asked because this means that more and more women are realising, this is BS and it's not *my* fault. This is very good to hear. This recognition is such a key survival thing.

Now in what has to be hilarious timing  we get these adds from Microsoft *blaming* women for leaving STEM. And here is a fabulous response to this this.

Now I would just like to remind you that this is the same Microsoft that, while very apologetic that it happened, their own employees the product of their own Microsoft culture and policies thought it was ok to have strippers dressed as schoolgirls at an industry party. Say what they like about what they supposedly believe but somehow their beliefs didn't get communicated to middle and lower employees here.

So b) surprises me I guess as maybe I was hoping for a different response? I mean, we're makers and fixers and problem solvers in STEM, so this response is like the total opposite of that. Put that together with a culture that puts the onus on girls to smooth things over, for women to make things all right, for females to do the emotional housework. It kind of goes against the grain.

I'm sick of fighting though. It's so much frigging energy for nothing. Yesterday a colleague from across my organisation who I much admire as being up to date with industry, very capable and adaptive tell me that she's looking for jobs externally. Their section is going through a reorg and it will be the third time she'll have to negotiate for her job.

You see another huge elephant in the room, and it's in this exact same room, is, most tech jobs can be done anywhere - and so a lot of STEM jobs gets shipped off overseas. There is a casualness and insecurity about tech which is just not friendly to people with families. As women bear the brunt of families then this leaves an off taste. I asked my social media why they thought a lot of people didn't study STEM at uni and that was the response from a number of guys who are actually in IT.

There is this huge thing about needing more people with STEM skills ... and then this competing problems with culture and insecurity. I get the feelling that we're going to have to solve it by going around rather than through.

Out. Now to continue getting better.

Well big news  - on Thursday I was successful at a position interview process elsewhere in the company. When I go to write my occupation on a form it will no longer be 'engineer' but instead will be 'analyst'.  Still deeply embedded in the STEM industry and with the need to drive with more autonomy, creativity and influence than I ever have before in my working life. It's back to more of the type of work that I was doing before I found myself in that toxic area. But at a much deeper level in a much harder job.

Such a difference in one year. Last year at this time I stayed with a friend in the country. I was trying to work on a side project for a competition for work and having problems focusing. We spent a bit of time talking about work and I realised that I was a bit of a mess. Come June last year, and the very first day of my first secondment out of there and there was just this massive sense of absolute relief. I had not realised how stressed I was in my old toxic area. That was by the end of Monday. I woke up on the Wednesday and thought, I can't go back. But you know, there are lots of nice people there in my old area and the work is very interesting. But off and on over the months I would think about how I had to go back after my secondment. And then there would be periods of massive spikes of depression thinking back over things. And then I worked out that going back and the spikes of depression were connected. So I became resolute about not going back. And then there was a second secondment away from there - and more importantly into a type of work that I had identified I had the skills for and wanted to do in the future, and that I could transition to as a junior role externally.

And now it's a year later and I can really see what a huge mess I must have been a year ago. Lots of people have commented to me how different I seem - a lot less stressed. I am more mentally healthy than I have been for a very long time.

About two years ago at one point I thought I was having a stroke. ECGs in emergency, an MRI, and a couple of appointments with a neurologist - a professor in neurology at a top teaching hospital no less, and no it's just all in my head. The neurologist was bemused that I was so relieved to be told it was just stress that was causing all these real symptoms. But seriously, why didn't I realise then what my job was doing to me and take action? How could I have kept going?

It's so strange. I guess I've had to survive for so long with my depression - CBT and just constant practice of thinking the best of things and consciously looking for good. And then applying that too my work area. Because there is a lot of good. And a lot of bullying and marginalisation behaviour is much better now. I mean, there are still outrageous examples - as per my last manager in that old toxic area prior to my secondment out. During my secondment out I was given the best possible manager back at my home base of my old area who has been amazing even though for all practical things he's not really my manager. There is just so much good in amongst the old area. But for me that door had closed. I had worked out that I could not go back. And finding that Outlook task kind of proved that again. I would constantly say to this wonderful person that it wasn't them and that they were fantastic, and that the new GM bringing in culture change is fantastic, but I am too damaged.

And I am. My lack of confidence applying for this role. Each little thing doing work, stretching out to make decisions that I would be totally responsible for, creating emails and documents, stretching out to ask questions. Being willing to be wrong. Asking for feedback - oh how precious is feedback and this time actually getting feedback. Being told I got the role and almost collapsing. Not wanting to tell anyone as it doesn't seem real. My posts on friends only social media is obscure and leaning back on a thread from days back about the 4th interview - but the friends who followed that have found it and are very happy for me. They've seen the damage over the years. It's been a long time. And they've seen me since I've been out of there.

So now to get over it. I've realised that listening to my friend in my old area saying that I have to get over it while I was there actually wasn't reasonable. The damage was done over a long long time. I was in that old area since 2000 and various incidents also prior that. That's a long, long time. To expect someone to just snap out of it is not realistic. I stayed because I was a little boiled frog. It's going to take me a while to trust again. It's going to take me a while to trust managers again - although I think I'm a naturally trusting person. Except HR. I don't think I'll ever trust HR at our company again but I don't really have to because they don't deal with us so that doesn't matter.  There are little day to day incidents of respect - it almost weirds me out.

I think that how I am going to get over this is producing one piece of work at a time. One document. One workshop. One training session. One repository. They know I'm still learning the technical stuff. They know my approach and my attitude. I delight that every day I'm there I'm learning new stuff. That one of my immediate team members is amazing at this job and I have him to learn off.  And all of this translates to roles I could get outside, away from the old area's type of industry.

Today two later there is a sense of relief and calm and determination. Even if I'm not up for this job I've got a chance. There is so much I can learn here. In fact I am also going to be working with an SME who is at the technology heart of some of my biggest technical dreams. I am nervous I won't be up for this but I'm going to try. See what happens I guess.

I don't know what they do so maybe I don't understand why they don't do it

I think... I need to talk about HR.

I try not to think about HR. I try to meet and recognise nice people in HR. The friends I have in HR who I like and respect and trust I watch really carefully trying to understand how they think.

Because mostly how the hell did what happened to me happen if HR exists? Seriously.

I should probably also mention that last Thursday week while trying to set on ways to manage the work that I'm now doing I was looking again at Outlook tasks thinking that this might be the most appropriate tool. And in amongst a similar experiment from a couple of years back, I found a few tasks from many years back, and one specific task from 2008.

It was a task  where I had detailed the day to day  things that had happened to me over a period of months - along with attached emails - that were about the bullying and what the section was like ... and I just read it over again as I was about to include things from it here thinking I had got my equilibrium back ... but I haven't. Finding it was like a bomb. Even talking about it makes me cry. Reading it again just then I feel the helpless, the angry (which I turn in on myself as it's safest) and uselessness of it all that made me want to do what I had starting acting on. At one point I was going to try to write a book on this. I have all my emails and books somewhere around. But I don't think I can. It is just too much.

But reading this stuff, I just think *how* did HR not step in and act? At that time there was 1 HR person for our 2500 employees in our branch nationally. I know this because when I first rang him I was my usual friendly and chatty self and he told me. But by the pinnacle of this whole debacle was a meeting with me, my manager, my manager's manager, the HR person, the HR person's manager on the phone. I had spent 1.5 hours with a friend who was an industrial relations lawyer preparing for this meeting and writing out a statement that I was going to make. When I showed another lawyer friend afterwards she said something about giving myself away. But I always fight fair and take ownership of my own issues. I don't remember the points of it but I remember her comments so I suspect whatever I did wasn't wise in the ways of the world. Ah well. When I tell people about that meeting they say that that would never happen with HR at their work and shake their head in horror.

My managers' manager retired last year. Before he did I rang him up and asked if he remembered. He implied that he remembered I had some problems and was quite unpleasant about it. People think he's a nice guy. I just don't know what to think. My manager at that time people thought and still do think he's a nice guy. I think he's a nice guy but too weak a person for the situation he was in. He had been working with HR before my stuff seriously started happening to get rid of someone (who did need to go - wasn't up to the work and was hassling female employees). HR seemed to have decided he should take the same approach with me that he had used with this other person. Which just didn't work as they were not the same issues. Anyway various things happened which when I tell people about them they're horrified and I'm still there.

I do indeed have a ripper work story to tell. When I won't fall apart telling it.

But HR. Seriously. I know that they work for the company and not for the employee. But when they don't truly bring out the company's supposed ethics and step in to do something about it is that truly working for the company?

Recently someone started a women in tech group on the corporate forum thing. So hey I joined - it was private too which is something I asked for over 2 years ago and nothing happened. Sounds like someone in the IT groups had also realised there was a need for a private women's support section.

However HR are commenting into this group's threads. I quote this particular HR person's response to another friend of mine's comments on failing to retain women:
"
Yes I agree it is an issue about retention as well as recruitment. I would encourage any female (wherever they work in the business) to raise any issues impacting their health and wellbeing with either their 1 up manager, HR or [the corporate sponsored counselling service]. Given the nature of [how our offices work] and [our policy of making all roles flexible to work in], it can sometimes be hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go to - which is why groups and discussion like this are so important.
"

This just sounds like paper-our-ass talk. Let's break it down practically shall we?

Talking about health issues with work is almost always a bad idea. Seriously just get real. Unless it's obvious physical something then just don't. It just becomes a handle on which they can cause you issues - they don't really want to have the hassle and you don't want to be in that position.

Impacting wellbeing - right. So the little 'microaggressions' (new pet term someone's come up with) you reckon mention those? To your 1-up? Ok... well... if you have a good relationship with your 1-up they will a)already know and have acted on them or b) you'll already be telling them. So the benefit of telling people to tell them is what actually? Obviously if you're *not* telling your 1-up manager there is a *reason*.  And telling HR? Well you tell me what they actually do and I might. Ask anyone these days and the first thing they'll tell you is HR is there for the company not you. The *only* reason you tell HR is to fill out a tickbox. It's a tickbox for yourself and a tickbox for them. Process followed so that when it is all useless you can say you followed it while then solving your own issues for yourself in another way. Processes themselves are totally for the company's protection. So, telling HR sure, but it does not assist with your health or wellbeing - just with a tickbox. Choose your time and do the minimum with the minimum fuss.

And the corporate counselling service - this confuses me. Almost sounds like they care ... but it's totally toothless. As an external organisation which mostly operates confidentially you can tell them what you like but what's that going to do? Nothing. Anyone sensible already has their own network of friends, families and counsellors totally external. I've proved this too - I've used them a couple of times just for alternate points of view - when yes they acknowledged I was bullied - in fact in the 2008 task has a reference to that. Supposedly they are trained and the corporate part of them suggests they know stuff about office relations. But toothless. Gums smiling in an absent way.

The stuff about the "hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go" confuses me - excepting the later context of "groups ... like this".  Which suggests to me that HR are *all over* this private women in tech group. Maybe they're like trying to make a mark here? Like a territorial cat?

Fortunately when it comes to HR I have no sense of smell. I kind of don't really know what they do except recruit, supposedly write policies to protect the company, and manage time-sheet data feeding into costs. They don't do anything that helps our day to day work. I guess I'll keep reading that group and posting if I think I can add to the conversation. The total cluelessness, and contextually emotional ineptness of that comment though, suggests we are going to get more HR input from time to time that might put a lot of people off.

Did I mention that during the worst times of my being bullied, I spoke to the diversity person of my company? He answered the phone and listened and said 'oh really' and sounded like he was laughing. I would email him afterwards giving points on what we discussed. I am fairly sure we talked twice in such a way. It's in those emails I will go through one day. He's head of diversity now. So with IWD etc he's posting up the corporate messages and posting the diversity report. Diversity means all types of diversity of course. But um, I see his name and his position, and well... I then read this territorial HR person's comment and it's all of the same.

In other news I danced at the wedding of some of the most beautiful people I know and he is HR. And one of my best friend's sisters is the most gorgeous person and she is HR. Not at my company. So I watch, and listen, and pay attention to what they tell me and what their values are. I do understand what they do as people because they are good people.

Moving On

It's international.

Edit: I didn't post this and I don't edit things (which is why spelling mistakes, bad grammar what have you) but I got distracted and missed this so I'll stick something here now.

Somewhat ambivalent about IWD day this year. Maybe I'll try next year. I would really like for it *not* to matter. But it does. And the reason why it does sucks.

In other news, I asked for, and got, my secondment extended - by the very sensible new GM of my old toxic area. In fact he said 'approved' before I finished my sentence.

This year I'm learning about 'trust'. It's the word I chose for the year... and I am surprised how much my new experiences at work (since leaving old toxic area) I'm having to learn trust again. Hmmm. Big topic. Another time.

Shoving women both ends of the pipe doesn't work

Day after IWD.

I am still amazed at how many articles (including a big one that just came out from my work) go on and on and on about more female graduates, more STEM to make more female graduates, more mentoring or whatever for women potentially up the top in management.

So happy to see a book released with a title 'Stop Fixing Women'. Haven't read it but I imagine it says pretty much what a lot of management groups have been saying since 2012 : it's not about fixing stuff for women, it's about fixing poor leadership. Poor diversity is the *result* of poor leadership throughout a company that in turn also obviously relates to poorer financial results. I mean, der.  Poor diversity (and not just women - anyone who is really different) is the *symptom* of poor leadership.

Good leadership means inclusion. It's so simple.

You got poor diversity mate, then it's telling you that somewhere somehow you haven't good as good as leadership as you could have.

The 'leadership' topic is huge. Go forth and conquer. Seriously there are so many tools to fix stuff.

So... why is diversity so horrendously bad?

What about we suggest... you haven't tried? That you don't care? That you don't understand because you haven't tried and you don't care?

Tying it to "financial returns" is the first thing that has FINALLY got your attention. I mean, we're all kind of amused while you muddle around being pompous about it. We'll just like hang 10 here polishing our nails while we wait, trying not to smile. Well smile maybe not as we still have to put up with the bullshit leadership style from the last decade. I mean, decades. Millennia really.

I heard they are getting rid of ranking systems at work so we are no longer going to be ranked against one another in our 'teams'. That's good. I don't like competing with my team members. I really want to collaborate. That's like, inclusion, yo?

Crossroads

I have been fortunate enough to secure 2 secondments over the last several months out of my old area. The first starting from June last year was in a tiny software group making tools that my old area used (userbase about 450 people).  The second starting late November in an area where I could do business analysis type work.

I worked out that I wanted to do business analysis type work talking to friends of mine who are BAs and listening to what other friends have done. I realised that some of the synthesising, coming up with solutions and communicating (including documentation) work I have a passion for over the years could be classified as this type of work. I've started doing training courses and the choice to do a secondment in a software development area was so that I would have a feel for how developers would operate so I could in turn be a better BA (although it was also great being told I had a natural bent for some of the programming concepts - I did enjoy that and can see the need to pick that up again on the side). The current secondment has been fantastic for learning the skills I need to move onto a BA position. Even better doing Solutions Analysis work - something I had not thought of doing and getting further into the technical side of things is where I naturally go. And recently I've done very well in a national competition at work for process fixing ideas where I could showcase all of these skills.

Although I've realise that the best thing that that competition has done has proved to *myself* I can do this. I can reach out to others and in a friendly way gather the information and actions I need to complete a project. I can inspire others with my ideas. I can explain clearly. I can present professionally. I seek out and incorporate good feedback. I can understand and take what I need from technical information. I can work out the leads to follow up later and focus on the information that I need in the immediate. I can do this. What is more I have received a lot of very positive feedback about both my idea, my persistence and my ability to communicate it from some very senior people.

And then last night I was chatting to a friend who is an industrial relations lawyer. I told her of my plans not to return to my old area but instead to take a mixture of annual and long service leave while looking for an internal (or external) position. I'm doing this because the thought of returning to my old area makes me "very" depressed.

I realised even before the end of the first day in that first secondment how much pressure I had been under in my old area that I  hadn't even realised. I woke up early two days after that and realised I couldn't go back. Off and on over the few months I would get massive, scary depressive spikes. I eventually worked out what was triggering them was the thought of going back. And that has drawn a line in the sand. I hadn't realised until I was out that I was operating in constant fight or flight mode in my old area. Just stunning. It literally made me stupid and supposedly would have sapped my creativity - this is neurologically a genuine thing. Check the studies. I have recently been chatting to a friend saying I realise that I am more mentally healthy right now than I've been for years and she profoundly agreed. Another reason not to go back.

The sad bit is there is a new GM who I earnestly believe is for the first time doing it right. And the recent reorganisation has put me with the *only* team leader who, like the GM, actually gets it - genuinely understands how to lead people. But the state manager? A known micromanager. And the other team leaders? Well one of them is the one who bullied me years ago and known to have issues leading others. Another is known for gossiping and back stabbing, and not being all that nice to staff - and was a manager I had started a complaint for discrimination early last year but then decided not to proceed. I kinda laughed in a disbelief that wasn't disbelief.  No one was surprised when these people were selected. Even if I go back to that team with the one good team leader we would be operating in a greater environment that is a product of the old culture - years and years, and generations and generations of a certain way of treating people.


So yeah I have a positive thing I'm working towards, and a thing I clearly should not go back to as it is bad for my mental health. And now my industrial relations lawyer friend is telling me it is not fair that I think I should take leave while finding another position. She thinks I should tell a doctor about the depressive spikes and take sick leave instead. And then they either find me another position or they might make me redundant. Problem with them making me redundant if it's not a genuine redundancy is that the taxation office would cause me additional problems - and that's not fair on me either.

Do I have the energy to do this? I really don't know if I could be bothered.

There is a currently a position in the area I am now seconding in. I've applied but the competition is stiff. So I'm not going to take action just now. I would just rather focus on the good and technically interesting things right now. I might ask for an extension of my secondment if I am not successful.