SUBJECT LINE: I Was Just Thrown Under The Bus…
It was Graduation Day!
As we all gathered in the hallway waiting for the ceremony to start, I stood quietly with my back to the doorway… when a booming voice smashed the silence.
“Who Wrote THESE Student Reports?!”
…I didn’t need to turn around to confirm whose voice it was… I had been on the receiving end of it enough times to know for sure. Besides, the dreadful look on my usually staunch Warrant Officers face, confirmed all my fears instantly.
Taking a deep breath, trying to stop the overwhelming “Fight or fight” overdose of adrenaline surging through my body… I turned around, braced myself for the worst and nervously said… “It was me Ma’am.”
“Well, I don’t think I have ever read anything like these before. Did you have any help?” she said sternly. (She was almost impossible to read! Her “Poker Face” was the best I’d ever seen.)
I looked at my Warrant Officer, who was slinking away slowly… “No, Ma’am. I did them all myself.”
“Well, great work Captain Longdon! You certainly have a gift for writing! I feel like I know each of these students intimately even though I’ve never met them before. Well done!” She said.
“Actually Ma’am, I might have had a little bit of help! Warrant Officer Woods checked them for me.”
She smirked as though she could fully see what I was doing and said “Excellent! You both make a great team! This year is going to be a great year for us all if you continue working to this standard!”
“Thanks Ma’am! I do have a great team!”
We all stood there, chests swollen with pride… basking in the unexpected and fleeting praise of one of the harshest and toughest bosses I’ve ever had.
After the Graduation, Warrant Officer Woods asked if he could have a moment of my time.
He just looked at me and said…
“Ma’am, in my 20 years in the Army, I have never seen an Officer do what you did today and I am still f*^king in shock! When you thought you were going to be ‘torn a new one’… you stood there and were prepared to take it all yourself. But when Colonel Sanders praised you… you wasted no time in sharing it with your team. You have just earned the respect of every person here and you have earned mine!”
“Thanks Woody. I thought that’s what leaders were supposed to do.” I said
“Well, that IS what they’re supposed to do… but few if any do! Ma’am, you’re definitely in a league of your own!”
Before that day…
My soldiers were wary and cautious of me. I had stepped in to the role left by an Officer who had been a workaholic with no life and expected everyone else to be the same. Although it was early in the year, everyone was burnt out, including myself, by her relentless chaos management, leadership style. (She had been moved into a new position for her own safety.)
On that day…
My soldiers saw a leader who would “Take a Bullet” for them and after that day… they’d do the same for me. Not because of the rank I wore, but because of the character of the person who wore it. (There’s a massive difference!)
I also earned the respect of Colonel Sanders (not her real name)… which was not an easy thing to do.
So fast-forward to now… in fact, let’s go to last week.
I’m sitting in my office listening to a call that a client I work for recorded. It is with one of his clients that he outsourced the copy component to me for.
They are talking about the project and bantering about how good the copy is… and then it happened…
“I think these guarantees are too weak! I would have expected better from you guys! I want you to rewrite them but make them stronger!” said my primary client.
“Oh, that wasn’t us… that was Colleen! Oops, I mean Pauline! She wrote those not us! I never liked them!” Said the secondary clients. (…Couldn’t even get my name right! How rude! Don’t they know who I am? lol!)
And then when they were complimented on a piece of copy I had actually written… they took all the credit. Not a single mention of “Colleen” anywhere!
WTF!!!
Did I just hear that correctly?
I replayed it and yep, there it was again. Nope, no misheard lyrics here!
Yikes! They just threw me under the bus!
Un-Fricken-Believable!
These people are supposed to be leaders in their industry (probably self appointed.) They are supposed to be teaching and dealing with other leaders… but there they were blaming someone else for their mistakes and taking the credit for something they didn’t do. Not too “leader-like” if you ask me.
Talk about expecting better from them!
It is true I “wrote” the so called weak guarantees, however what I actually gave them was a template to use so they could write their own stronger ones. They were never meant to stay as they were. These people were lazy and left my templates in place. (Seriously… they had one job to do!)
I wasn’t really upset about their laziness or them taking credit for something they didn’t do… what did upset me was their quickness to lay blame away from themselves.
However, I’m kind of glad they did because now I can share this with you. Their behavior is a clear example of…
Knowledge Nugget #42 – Leadership Is Not Just About Qualifications
Now, before I start… I want to be clear and say, I know qualifications are important. But they are not the only factor in the leadership equation.
Also I made a snarky comment above about them being self-appointed… to be honest, I have no problem with that either. Some of my best friends are self-appointed leaders in their industry.
The difference between the true leaders and the fakers is character!
You know… Character!
It seems to be something lots of people lack. But what is it exactly?
The simplest definition is… it’s the combination of particular qualities in a person that makes them different from others.
So when these secondary clients of mine blamed me and then took the credit for something I’d done… they instantly showed how different they were. And how different I was to them.
They really showed their true colors, their lack of good character and most of all, their absolute lack of leadership.
I guess leadership is a sensitive issue for me. When I was in the Army, I was held to a very high standard by not only my superior Officers, but also by my subordinates.
Too many so-called leaders spend too much time “looking up” trying to impress the people above them.
This is the wrong approach!
To be a real leader, all you need to do is:
- Do what you do with a consistency of character… regardless of who’s watching
- Be quick to take the blame and even quicker to share the praise
- And most of all is be the kind of leader you’d be proud to follow
- So what kind of leader are you?
Do you take responsibility or lay the blame?
Are you the kind of leader people would take a bullet for?
Would you take a bullet for them?
Or are you the kind of “leader” who throws people under buses?
Until next week… be safe, take care and be the leader you were born to be 🙂
Cheers,
Pauline xxx
Pauline Longdon
a.k.a. “The Copy Alchemist”
P.S. When the Australian Defence Force first went to East Timor, one of my bosses was chosen to be the Commanding Officer. He was not an effective leader or very well liked. So rather than have soldiers who would take a bullet for him… he had soldiers engraving his name on their bullets. Not good at all!
P.P.S. I had the honor of being interviewed for this month’s Barefoot Writer Magazine. If you want to check out the article, click here 😉
P.P.P.S. Just before we go… I wanted to “Bust a Leadership Myth” for you… I don’t agree with the idea that great leaders lead from the front! In the Military, everyone has a job to do and if leaders are up the front, they are stopping people from doing their job. The greatest gifts a leader can give their team are… space to do the job they’ve been trained to do, support and trust. True leaders can lead from anywhere… the front, the back, the sides or where ever they find themselves.
People who only know how to lead from the front usually have a self-serving agenda (getting medals and glory.) But in the harsh reality of war, they are always the first people who are shot… and I won’t ruin things by telling you who by 😉
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