“Is it our turn now?”
I was a Big 4 auditor, and we were in a cramped audit room. Our Engagement Manager had visited us on site to review, and tore into our in-charge, as he was not happy with progress. After he left, the in-charge, visibly shaken, turned and unloaded the same frustration on me. She left for lunch, leaving me with two junior staff members who looked at me in anticipation.
In that moment, with zero management training, I had a choice:
1. Continue the blame cascade
2. Break the chain.
I chose to break it. I told them they had done exactly what was asked of them, and if management was unhappy, the responsibility stopped with me. I asked them to keep up the good work, and I would let them know if we needed to change our approach.
The relief on their faces was immediate. We went from a state of fear to a state of focus. What I witnessed that day, though I didn’t know it, was an example of emotional contagion; the psychological phenomenon where emotions and behaviours spread like a virus. A manager’s stress doesn’t just stay with them, it infects an entire team, reducing morale and performance. By breaking the chain, I had unknowingly created a small pocket of psychological safety, which I now know is the bedrock of high-performing, innovative teams.
We want to be surrounded by smart, capable people we can learn from, and that is fantastic when we can find it. We aren’t always that fortunate, particularly early in our careers, and in difficult economic situations. That was my experience, but I still learned a great deal from poor displays of both management and leadership. What I was seeing felt wrong, even though I couldn’t articulate why, and it encouraged me to read, and seek out capable leaders to learn from. That in turn gave me frameworks and the vocabulary to understand what I was seeing, and be thoughtful when it became my turn to lead. It taught me to see the patterns that lead to wasted effort, high turnover, and missed opportunities – the invisible liabilities that never make it onto a balance sheet.
What lessons have you learned from bad examples?