Battle Tested

It’s true. I am. You are. We have been through it all. We have made good and bad decisions. Good and bad mistakes. We have fought an uphill battle and survived. We have fought a downhill battle and made it through without failure. We have failed. We have learned. We have grown.

Does this sound familiar? It should. Most managers have gone through it. If you haven’t then your time will come and it won’t be easy. No amount of ass kissing or trying to talk your way out of things will make a difference. You will be pushed to the limit. Stretched thin and lastly you will cower to an unwavering boss that thinks you deserve it because they think so. It sucks, but believe me, you will survive. It will define who you are as a manager, a leader and more importantly…a person.

Pretty dramatic? I know. I am battle tested. I have been there. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether or not this is something that you can live with. Are these decisions worth the time you spent solving the problem and not receiving credit? Are the hours away from your personal life worth the rungs on the ladder climbed to succeed worth the mindset that you deserve. Are the angry entitlements of your direct reports back stabbing you whenever they get a chance not knowing you hear everything worth the silence it takes to help them grow into better people worth it?

I asked myself these things everyday throughout my career. I had sleepless nights pondering what I could do to just make everything copasetic. Make my environment a bit more manageable. Coerce those around me to drink the Kool-Aid and jump on board someone else’s vison train. I hated the politics. I REALLY hated the politics. It almost destroyed me, but you know want? It made me the person I am today. I don’t care about that shit anymore. I care about you and helping those of you get through it. Like I did for 27 years.

Too old. Too opinionated. Soften yourself. Too masculine. Too soft. Too compassionate. Not compassionate enough. Handle change. Lead change. Bring about change. Don’t change. It is enough to make you sick. It did. It made me sick. Panic attacks. I was pushed, prodded and driven to levels of hell I never thought I’d see, but I survived it. Grew from it. Inspired a new sense of self from it. That is what it means to be battle tested, at least to me.

I’d like to think I made some type of difference in the lives of those I worked with. I hear I did. I watch them in their careers now and believe the insanity that we went through together meant something to them. It did to me. I am in a reflective state of mind these days trying to figure out my next adventure. I am not sure what that is exactly, but I do know I need to make a difference. I need to share my experiences. I want to believe in the abilities of people and push them toward growth. I know those things to be true. The world is changing. People care less about each other and more about themselves and how everything affects them. A selfish mentality that has made managing people harder than it has ever been. Why? What has changed? What will it take to make people like people again?