I don’t respect people like I once did. Certainly not leaders in big businesses.
It’s not a big statement on the world. It’s not even a reflection of the poor ethics and behaviours of leaders running big companies I’ve known.
I think it’s more to do with me.
I’ve changed.
My respect for senior management was always a default setting. Inherited from my parents and then practised over decades. The kind of respect I’d have had for a teacher.
Respect for the position more than anything they’d actually done to deserve it.
I had bosses who were not always nice people, not to be trusted, not always aligned with my interests or values. But I felt I had to respect them, partly because my career depended on it, partly because it was part of the culture.
Everyone did.
We had to be careful what we said. And not because it was a culture of fear – in many ways this might have been easier, clearer cut. It was just a culture where their voice mattered most. Their time even more. It was an honour to get time with them. There was no higher accolade than one-on-one time with an executive.
I don’t expect it’s any different in most other traditional big companies. Maybe more modern ones are different. But I doubt it. Amazon and Apple have both told staff you’ve got to work under our noses, at our beck and call.
Breaking out of it has done a few things for me: it’s forced a reappraisal of who deserves my respect. And it’s made me see other leaders as just people – not gods on a pedestal.
But I think more importantly it’s elevated my own view of myself.
When I picture myself back at BP, I picture someone a lot smaller. But also I picture a child. Like my 11 year old son. He think he’s got autonomy, until he remembers I control his Apple ID password.
But back at BP I wasn’t 11, I was 45.
I always remember the first Corporate Escapology podcast I did with my friend Steve Cook. He said that:
“They (Corporates) kind of turn you, if you’re not careful, into a bit of an infant, a bit of a child, because you become what you’re taught”.
And it’s not an explicit lesson, so it must be implicit, cultural.
You hang off those leaders’ demands. In favour, out of favour. Your project gets the green-light, oh no sorry we’re not doing that. Your role’s not in scope, no actually it is (and I never said it wasn’t).
These people have disproportionate power; their words speak volumes, louder with more reverberations than other people’s.
I think this all conspired to make me much smaller than I should have been.
And today many of the people I talk to – from different companies, different sectors – sound a bit the same tbh.
Reduced.
They’ve got different language. They’re frustrated, weary. They can’t believe there’s another restructure happening so soon after the last – and they feel disempowered once again.
I think it’s about respect.
Of not being treated fairly, not being treated by other adults as an adult yourself.
When we talk about equity, there are of course many under-represented groups in society who need our collective outrage and action, but the demand for equity is universal: adults treating other adults equally, fairly and respectfully.
However high they’ve been able to climb up the greasy pole.
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Second cohort of Escapology Live started last week – really enjoyed meeting Brave New People who are thinking about taking back control and exploring the outside world! Here’s a little grab of the session of just me talking about the Escape Method and the importance of consciously detaching from your corporate job.