You work hard for your papers, you pick up new skills, then you seek out employment opportunities and pray that you land at a company that pays enough to sustain you. Each of those steps lines up, and you are now salaried. It’s what most people hope for, and you’re even luckier because the company provides an environment where you can develop your skills. This was your next prayer after they sent you your offer letter, and it was answered, but soon you discover there’s always another mountain to climb.
He joined the team three months after you started working there. It’s a busy workplace. Each day is different from the previous one. The world is also changing rapidly, and clients want to experiment with new tools and stay ahead of changing ideas about how society operates. But, they want you to experiment or rather give them sure proof ideas, but you’re still on the receiving end if it doesn’t work out. You love the job, the pressure and the challenge.
That’s how you have become an important asset to the team in a record three months. You’ve interacted with almost all departments in the company as you serve the clients. The turnover at the company is also high, but you haven’t yet understood why.
When Ronald joined the company as the new department head, Mary and her teammates didn’t expect much to change. The outgoing supervisor was a great leader. He’d known how to create synergy among them, protect their interests with upper management, and even serve as a buffer between them and some difficult clients. They succeeded together and failed together. Ronald had a different style.
He’d come from a different country and felt he knew more than they did, which he probably did, given his position was on merit, but they disliked how he interacted with them. The first time there was friction between Ronald and the team was when they were tasked with streamlining inefficiencies at the company.
The team had already been exploring the issue with the previous leader, but their solutions involved migrating from one system of doing things to another. It required proper planning and needed to be done in phases. Eager to please his higher-ups, Ronald overpromised how soon it could get done. He knew the given time frame was too short, yet he didn’t push back. Instead, he pushed the pressure down on Mary and the team.
The team worked day and night to meet the deadline. Meanwhile, another crisis came up at the company. One of their top clients needed their attention. Mary suggested putting a hold on the other task so that they could complete the top client’s work first. Ronald was livid with her. The team quickly learned to keep their opinions to themselves.
Fortunately, they were able to resolve the top client’s issue, but it came at a cost; the other one had hiccups. The senior managers were angry with Ronald over the problems, and he quickly passed the blame down. This wasn’t an isolated incident; it began to affect Mary and the rest of the team. Their performance reviews were less than impressive, to put it mildly.
Then one of their clients came with a request for a product. Mary and her teammates had worked with that client before. However, this time with Ronald as their immediate boss, things were different. He was the kind who took credit for his team’s good ideas, but if things went south, he’d quickly throw them under the bus.
Sometimes Ronald was in the habit of not listening to his team to get the reasoning behind their ideas. This was one of those times. The pitch they were presenting was Mary’s idea. Ronald took all the credit for it, especially when the client approved it. Then came the execution, and that was when Ronald ignored Mary’s input.
Mary and the rest of the team had gotten used to Ronald and opted not to push back on his decisions. While Ronald’s approach was logical, it ignored the localization aspect. Had he listened to Mary, he’d have avoided the embarrassment.
Mary and the team had gotten to the point where you know you could lose your job, not because of your competence, but because of office politics and the company culture. They couldn’t really complain about Ronald to senior managers, so they did what they were told. However, while alone, they still worked through solutions as they had before Ronald joined them.
When the product was ready, they had a presentation with the client’s team. As expected, Ronald took the lead. One member of the client’s team quickly pointed out the issue that Mary and the rest of the team had tried to bring up with Ronald, but he shut them down.
Ronald didn’t have enough information to provide an alternative solution on the spot. The client’s team looked unimpressed. The CEO of Mary’s company was also present because the client was his friend, too. Against her better judgment, Mary decided to voice her solution. Outshining Ronald went against everything she believed in, and she wasn’t sure it was wise, but she was tired of looking incompetent.
She walked the room through the changes they could make in detail, and the client’s team agreed to give them more time to implement them. Of course, they didn’t know that that version of the product was ready because Mary and the rest of the team had worked on it during their spare time.
Ronald lashed out at Mary later when they were alone. It didn’t matter as much because she’d saved the company, and people with more power at the company had noticed it. Mary and her team pretended they were working on the changes for a few days before delivering the product. That incident prompted an investigation into the department, and some changes were made in the team’s favour.
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