One of the most important things a leader can do is to say, “You’re right. That stinks.”<\/p>\n
This morning, amidst the hubbub of our typical getting-the-day-started activities, our dog decided to defend our back yard from a skunk. The skunk won.<\/p>\n
Overwhelmed by the intensity of the smell, my teenage daughter whined and moaned, saying, “It stinks!”\u00a0 All I could do was agree, and say, “You’re right. It stinks.\u00a0 We’ll do what we can to clear the air. But, for now, we just have to put up with it.”<\/p>\n
What does this have to do with making work fun? Everything.<\/p>\n
There is a management theory that states you should never allow those you lead to know that you disagree with a decision made at a higher level. I disagree with this wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n
Have you ever worked for someone who refused to acknowledge that the current situation stinks? That something was just plain stupid?\u00a0 I have. It’s annoying.<\/p>\n
Admitting that you disagree does not mean you openly dissent or refuse to abide by that decision. It simply says, “I disagree.” Nothing more.<\/p>\n
When a leader admits they are not happy about a decision or situation, it gives those they lead hope. Yes, hope.\u00a0 Hope that at some time a better decision might be made. Hope that effort will be applied to changing the situation. Hope that given the right opportunity, your boss might try to influence a change in the situation. Hope that in the meantime, we can wait this out together.<\/p>\n
As I sit here in my home office, this situation stinks. There’s nothing more I can do about it for now, but I have hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the most important things a leader can do is to say, “You’re right. That stinks.” This morning, amidst the hubbub of our typical getting-the-day-started activities, our dog decided to defend our back yard from a skunk. The skunk won. Overwhelmed by the intensity of the smell, my teenage daughter whined and moaned, saying, … Continue reading That stinks!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}