Dragon and a Tiger

Long time ago when working for another employer, my team member came to see me, she was visibly angry and seemed a bit shaken. I asked her to sit and than I asked her why are you in this state. She said to me that manager of another department came to see her while she was sitting on her desk and shouted at her in front of everyone. Hearing this made me very angry, this particular manager has developed an habit of shouting at people in lower ranks.

It is not important here if she was at fault or not, there is a way to give feedback, ask person to come to your office and have a professional discussion about why he\she did what was not to your liking. Worse thing one can do is to humiliate them in front of his/her peers.

It took me to Buddhist story about Tiger and a dragon. While tiger lunges straight to bulldoze through his opponents, dragon show patience and wisdom. In essence dragon is afraid of his own powers, because dragon knows very well damage his powers can cause and consequence of that infuses restraint.

When most Engineers are chosen to become Managers, seldom it is based on management skills, unfortunately mostly it is based solely on Technical skills. What skill this manager exhibited when he came and shouted at a person much lower in rank than him. Only thing for me on exhibition was his incompetency and immaturity.

One thing we forget as managers or so to speak leaders, people listen to our abusive language and put up with our tantrums not because they are weak, not because they are cowards, not because they do not know how to shout back. They listen because they respect the power company has given us. We should remember that this power is given to us and with that comes responsibility and what is given can be taken away. Hence; this power is temporary, only valid till company desires, you don't own that power, it is lend to you, nothing but a loan which you will give back.

I am a firm believer that a young person can be a genius, can have mental strength to put to shame people older than him\her but almost always; unlike intelligence, wisdom will come with age. For some wisdom never comes no matter what the age but you will almost never find a 12 year old with wisdom.

In my opinion real display of your courage is not in shouting at your juniors, instead it is in standing your ground in front of someone more powerful, that takes strength, that shows character, that for me is judge of who you are and what you are capable of. Best manager for me is the one who is a lamb to his team and Dragon with his superiors. By being a Dragon I do not mean be disrespectful but it means to be firm, wise and honest, tell them what they don't want to hear, tell them how it is and take responsibility for actions of his/her team specially when things have gone wrong.

You often hear the argument that to get the job done, you have to be authoritative, this mindset is flawed and is completely baseless. If you motivate your team, if you can make them part of yours and company's vision, they will go out of their way and achieve more than you expected. Fear is not a solution, fear if used is failure to manage the team. It shows you failed as a manager, as a leader and failed as a professional.

Some want to be feared, most of us strive to be respected but there is another level which we should aim for and that is to be loved. Loved by our team members, by our colleagues and everyone around us. Why ? because we have the power to bring joy to them, which takes me back to my last article Happiness at Work, if you did not bring joy to others how can you possibly get joy in your own life.

Ending this article with below quote, this summarizes everything I said above in one line. Quote is by Matshona Dhliwayo;

“Intelligence is of the mind, understanding is of the heart, wisdom is of the soul.”