Being honest about losing focus...

I always remember the first time I told a manager that I wasn’t feeling very engaged. I was very young in my career and felt overwhelming apathy without knowing why… I liked the company I worked for and I did in the main like the people too but I wasn’t happy going to work which was something very new to me and I constantly felt deflated. I’d lived most of my life so far always speaking my mind and the thoughts in my head as they happened so naturally I thought being honest with my manager would help me understand the issue, overcome it and get more direction and passion in my work. Unfortunately that’s not what happened and my honesty was taken as discontent and insubordination; fast forward a day or 2 and some very awkward glances and comments in the office and my time at the company was over quicker than I realised what had happened.

I didn’t analyse too much at the time and quickly got a new job in a company that turned out to be so unethical and poorly ran that I don’t even declare it on my LinkedIn profile at risk of being associated with their practices. This was a low point in my career and it definitely affected my outlook; Although I didn’t become dishonest moving forward, it definitely made me more guarded, less open and blindly appreciative of working for a good company, regardless if it was the right career fit for me. My mindset shifted from be honest and passionate to shut up and put up which although had it’s benefits at first to my productive output, it wasn’t good for managers that wanted my thoughts, my teams that wanted my full contribution and most importantly myself in my own development and happiness. Being the passionate outspoken person I am, there were flashes of my honesty here and there that to be honest often came out the wrong way trying to balance what to supress which wasn’t good for anyone.

Looking back, that first managers response, most likely due to inexperience was similar to my apathy. In my role I had little control over what I did, I didn’t feel like an expert, and I wasn’t entirely sure on how my input affected the success of the team. I didn’t understand that at the time and neither did they. I do think that their reaction to me approaching them with this concern was an indicator that they didn’t value me as a person or have much concern for my happiness which could have been inexperience, a lack of empathy and care or a mixture of both.

Thankfully I’ve had some incredible managers since as well as some challenging experiences along the way that through various situations have brought back my original principles that honesty is the best policy. Practising that principle has brought some very interesting conversations to say the least as I’m sure some of my teams, managers and others will testify to. However as I recently touched on in a LinkedIn post, I spent quite a lot of time in a job I wasn’t happy in because I didn’t want to put my desires, or more so my happiness first, over what is practical and sufficient and not correctly processing this situation first time round prolonged this journey and was a product of my unhappiness.

My overall message here and the lesson I’ve learnt is that being honest may not get you the ideal results, but it will always bring out the truth, and I don’t believe you can ever be happy if you’re living a lie. And that does hugely include being honest with yourself, whether that’s admitting you are wrong or don’t know the answer or just accepting that someones beliefs and practices aren’t aligned with yours and not only is that ok, but neither of you should change to be able to move forward.

Thank you for taking the time to read my words and hopefully my experience can bring some value to you! in my next article, I'll be talking about making seemingly risking decisions for the benefit of yourself, not for your employer.