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> There's more to being a leader than shipping a volume of features, you are also an important figure in the lives of your team and they need you in a time of c

> There's more to being a leader than shipping a volume of features, you are also an important figure in the lives of your team and they need you in a time of crisis. deleted

idontknowifican 5y ago
this isn’t work related, this is human meeds and suffering. i understand management is ass, don’t become an ass yourself
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  > this isn’t work related, So give them time off to grieve. Once you say that “they need you [the manager] in a time of crisis” you are putting the tragedy in a work-related context. The crux of the issue is the tragedy that happened. Not how the supposed leader responds to it. The worker bees can get space to grieve alone or among their peers.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    Several years ago, I lost a friend to cancer. He had previously worked on my team, and was well liked there. My boss at the time, who I adored and still do, hadn’t known him as well but understood that his death devastated to me. I came in on a Saturday to let the team know of his passing, and to work. We had scheduled a weekend hackathon—if I recall, this had been my idea originally. My boss, very sincerely concerned, asked me, “why are you here? You can go home.” I told him there’s no where else I’d rather be. That wasn’t only because he was such a great boss, but that was a large contributing factor. He kindly, gently said he understood and that I should stay and contribute whatever felt comfortable and leave whenever that felt like what I needed. That didn’t make mourning feel any less difficult, but it made me feel like I was right that work was where I needed to be that day. My point is not that this is the form all leadership should take. It’s true that giving people time off to mourn is almost definitely the best default. But there is a compassionate kind of leadership that can be this welcoming and compassionate comforting.
    - wccrawford 5y ago
      My limited experiences of grief has shown that I react largely the same way at first, and then later probably need that time off. So I'd rather come in and get some work done until things really hit home, and then take that time. Others clearly need the time right away instead. I think a lot of people still don't realize that everyone deals with emotions differently, even though they've been told that a lot in the last few decades, and perhaps a lot longer.
      - eyelidlessness 5y ago
        Yeah I react similarly to what you describe, and if I recall I did take some time off to grieve later. And yes, I agree that a lot of people have trouble recognizing different ways people process emotions. It’s been a persistent thing in my life, I’m well over in the differently column for a lot of people (ADHD/autistic).
    - avgcorrection 5y ago
      That was the right move by them. But I can’t say that it takes much compassion to in order to allow/remind an employee that they don’t have to work on a Saturday (hackaton).
      - eyelidlessness 5y ago
        The compassionate part was being emotionally receptive to hear and understand why I wanted to be there in the first place despite it not being his instinct about what I needed, to trust me that I knew what would be best for me, and to gently remind me—without pressure—that it would be okay if what I needed changed. I understand that’s a bunch of emotional nuance, which may still not come across. But that nuance can be really hard for even close friends to get right when the other (or both) are grieving. If he had merely offered to let me go home—or, worse for me, insisted—I would agree that it wasn’t particularly noteworthy as far as compassion goes.
  - pbourke 5y ago
    > Once you say that “they need you [the manager] in a time of crisis” you are putting the tragedy in a work-related context. Sometimes all that’s needed is for the manager to not be a giant fucking dick. My aunt passed away a few years ago, and I took a few days off work to go to her funeral (a few hundred miles away). When I mentioned that I was going to take a few days bereavement leave, my manager at the time responded by rules lawyering whether the death of an aunt qualified under the company’s bereavement policy (it did). He otherwise said all the right things, but that’s what I remember nearly 10 years later.
cookiecaper 5y ago
It sounds distasteful only because the vast majority of bosses out there aren't worthy of the mantle. An individual's relationship with their immediate boss is one of those intimate things in life and it deserves sanctity. Help your people and don't be a dick and you'll be amazed at the bounty of unearned gratitude that comes back around -- and often not just once, but continuing for years. Being a good boss is "the gift that keeps giving" to good bosses everywhere.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tonyarkles 5y ago
  I’m not saying this as any kind of brag. To be honest, I ended up as a manager by accident and when the team grew too much I found someone else to do it. I still work at the company and come by to help the team out once in a while. That shift happened about 6 months ago. My wife caught COVID last month while I was out of town. Since I continued testing negative, we decided that I would stay at the farm until either I tested positive or she tested negative. I posted a message on Slack explaining where I was and why, just as a “why is Tony joining all meetings remote this week” kind of update. Immediately, three of my previous reports reached out directly to let me know that they were more than happy to drop off anything she might need: groceries, medication, Dairy Queen, anything. That is the kind of relationship a manager/leader and their reports can have. We’ve never really done much outside of work socially. We do the odd team dinner to mark special occasions. Two of them have had car trouble and are handy but didn’t have the tools they needed; I had the tools (tubing bender for a brake line, electric impact for getting a stuck bolt out) and dropped those off on the weekend. The big dance I have always tried to do is make us into a team that always has each other’s back. I’ve made it clear that sometimes The Business wants us to do weird things that don’t always make sense and we’ve gotta just do it, but in general I’m doing my best to shield them from nonsense and help make sure we’ve got an environment where everyone can do their best work. I dunno, it was all an experiment and it seems to have worked out.
  - avgcorrection 5y ago

> There's more to being a leader than shipping a volume of features, you are also an important figure in the lives of your team and they need you in a time of crisis. deleted

idontknowifican 5y ago

this isn’t work related, this is human meeds and suffering. i understand management is ass, don’t become an ass yourself

avgcorrection 5y ago
> this isn’t work related, So give them time off to grieve. Once you say that “they need you [the manager] in a time of crisis” you are putting the tragedy in a work-related context. The crux of the issue is the tragedy that happened. Not how the supposed leader responds to it. The worker bees can get space to grieve alone or among their peers.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Several years ago, I lost a friend to cancer. He had previously worked on my team, and was well liked there. My boss at the time, who I adored and still do, hadn’t known him as well but understood that his death devastated to me. I came in on a Saturday to let the team know of his passing, and to work. We had scheduled a weekend hackathon—if I recall, this had been my idea originally. My boss, very sincerely concerned, asked me, “why are you here? You can go home.” I told him there’s no where else I’d rather be. That wasn’t only because he was such a great boss, but that was a large contributing factor. He kindly, gently said he understood and that I should stay and contribute whatever felt comfortable and leave whenever that felt like what I needed. That didn’t make mourning feel any less difficult, but it made me feel like I was right that work was where I needed to be that day. My point is not that this is the form all leadership should take. It’s true that giving people time off to mourn is almost definitely the best default. But there is a compassionate kind of leadership that can be this welcoming and compassionate comforting.
  - wccrawford 5y ago
    My limited experiences of grief has shown that I react largely the same way at first, and then later probably need that time off. So I'd rather come in and get some work done until things really hit home, and then take that time. Others clearly need the time right away instead. I think a lot of people still don't realize that everyone deals with emotions differently, even though they've been told that a lot in the last few decades, and perhaps a lot longer.
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      Yeah I react similarly to what you describe, and if I recall I did take some time off to grieve later. And yes, I agree that a lot of people have trouble recognizing different ways people process emotions. It’s been a persistent thing in my life, I’m well over in the differently column for a lot of people (ADHD/autistic).
  - avgcorrection 5y ago
    That was the right move by them. But I can’t say that it takes much compassion to in order to allow/remind an employee that they don’t have to work on a Saturday (hackaton).
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      The compassionate part was being emotionally receptive to hear and understand why I wanted to be there in the first place despite it not being his instinct about what I needed, to trust me that I knew what would be best for me, and to gently remind me—without pressure—that it would be okay if what I needed changed. I understand that’s a bunch of emotional nuance, which may still not come across. But that nuance can be really hard for even close friends to get right when the other (or both) are grieving. If he had merely offered to let me go home—or, worse for me, insisted—I would agree that it wasn’t particularly noteworthy as far as compassion goes.
- pbourke 5y ago
  > Once you say that “they need you [the manager] in a time of crisis” you are putting the tragedy in a work-related context. Sometimes all that’s needed is for the manager to not be a giant fucking dick. My aunt passed away a few years ago, and I took a few days off work to go to her funeral (a few hundred miles away). When I mentioned that I was going to take a few days bereavement leave, my manager at the time responded by rules lawyering whether the death of an aunt qualified under the company’s bereavement policy (it did). He otherwise said all the right things, but that’s what I remember nearly 10 years later.

cookiecaper 5y ago

It sounds distasteful only because the vast majority of bosses out there aren't worthy of the mantle. An individual's relationship with their immediate boss is one of those intimate things in life and it deserves sanctity. Help your people and don't be a dick and you'll be amazed at the bounty of unearned gratitude that comes back around -- and often not just once, but continuing for years. Being a good boss is "the gift that keeps giving" to good bosses everywhere.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tonyarkles 5y ago
I’m not saying this as any kind of brag. To be honest, I ended up as a manager by accident and when the team grew too much I found someone else to do it. I still work at the company and come by to help the team out once in a while. That shift happened about 6 months ago. My wife caught COVID last month while I was out of town. Since I continued testing negative, we decided that I would stay at the farm until either I tested positive or she tested negative. I posted a message on Slack explaining where I was and why, just as a “why is Tony joining all meetings remote this week” kind of update. Immediately, three of my previous reports reached out directly to let me know that they were more than happy to drop off anything she might need: groceries, medication, Dairy Queen, anything. That is the kind of relationship a manager/leader and their reports can have. We’ve never really done much outside of work socially. We do the odd team dinner to mark special occasions. Two of them have had car trouble and are handy but didn’t have the tools they needed; I had the tools (tubing bender for a brake line, electric impact for getting a stuck bolt out) and dropped those off on the weekend. The big dance I have always tried to do is make us into a team that always has each other’s back. I’ve made it clear that sometimes The Business wants us to do weird things that don’t always make sense and we’ve gotta just do it, but in general I’m doing my best to shield them from nonsense and help make sure we’ve got an environment where everyone can do their best work. I dunno, it was all an experiment and it seems to have worked out.
- avgcorrection 5y ago