Leadership isn’t a game
Since leadership and career management are my thing these days I like to keep up with what the Joneses are saying. I talk to folks, read blogs, check out online magazines, and even read an old-fashioned book every now and then.
There’s a certain type of leadership/career pundit that insists on referring to all this as a game. As in “hard decisions are just part of the game” or “you’ve got to let your employees know you’re still in the game”.
Ok, call me crotchety. My wife does. But this isn’t a game.
I know that no one is intentionally trying to be insensitive or trivialize what it is we are doing. What they’re probably up to is to appear to be part of the cool crowd that thinks this is so much fun it’s like a game. Or they’re trying to show that they know so much about this that to them it’s a game but for the rest of us lesser beings its real work.
But the fact is that the language leads the attitude. And the attitude that this is a game is wrong. This isn’t a game. Here’s why.
(I’m using lots of they’s and them’s here; someone will no doubt search the book or web site and find a place that I’ve referred to this as a game. I’m probably guilty, so you got me. But bear with me, because the point is still valid.)
Remember that we’re doing big things here
First, we’re about some big stuff here. If you are in science, engineering, or technology you are helping to shape the world that everyone else will live in over the next 5, 10, or 15 years. Sure, doctors and lawyers get all the good press, but try getting from San Francisco to Oakland without an engineer. Or try making a cell phone call. Or sending an email. Or prescribing a drug that hasn’t been developed.
You get the picture: we are required to build, maintain, and move a society forward. Mostly that boils down to very mundane tasks on any given day, but don’t let all that dull your sensibilities to the fact that we’re doing some pretty critical things.
People depend upon the things you make
When I worked in the mobile telecom industry we were all reminded that our network had to be reliable: what if your mother was standing in the middle of a dark urban street in the middle of the night with a flat tire and needed to call you for help?
As a careerist in science, engineering, and technology, people depend upon the products you produce. You owe it to them, and to yourself, to produce the best stuff you are capable of producing.
Sure, not everything is a piece of critical infrastructure, but some things, are, and you never know when someone is going to build something critical on top of something else you made.
There are real families at stake
As a member of the executing team (i.e., “management”) your staff—and their wives, husbands, kids, dogs, no-good cousins, and elderly parents—depend upon you and your peers to keep the ship afloat. The paycheck that you enable makes normal, healthy, routine, boring, wonderful lives possible.
The first time you have to decide which 5, 10, or 100 people that you work with and care about get laid off is the last time you’ll think of this as a game.
Language leads attitude. Let’s all agree to at least try to stop referring to all this difficult, important stuff as a game. Maybe together we can stop encouraging people to act irresponsibly with our lives.
