Oswald Letter

Keepin’ It Real

As I write this, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Las Vegas. I must admit that I’m not a big fan of Las Vegas. It’s nothing against the city, it’s just that I typically spend less than 72 hours in Las Vegas at any one time and never get outside the hotel. So all I’m exposed to is the environment that the hotel has created. And it all seems so fake to me.

For instance, yesterday I touched a “marble” column in the hotel at which I’m staying. Only it wasn’t marble. It was painted to look like marble and was actually hollow! And there are all the hotel employees dressed up in costumes pretending to be something or someone they aren’t. Then there are lights, bells, and whistles going off on slot machines as people “win” $2 after pumping in many times their winnings. None of it is what it appears to be. It’s not real!

When you’re in a place where much of what you see is not what it appears to be, it makes you doubt everything. You’re not sure whom or what to trust, so you trust nothing at all. This got me thinking about being genuine. It’s critical that people are genuine and that they be honest about who and what they are. This is especially true about managers. If you manage people, you must be genuine. It’s the only way people will trust you. You can’t fake it. People will know the difference — just like I know that the woman walking through the hotel lobby really isn’t Cleopatra.

I think young and first-time managers really struggle with this. They get promoted into their first management position and suddenly change their behavior. They no longer act the same way they have in the past despite their apparent success that earned them the promotion. I know that I, as a young manager, was very self-conscious about my age. Here I was, a young guy, thrust into a position where I was managing a number of people — most older than I. Should I try to act older and more mature to justify my position? Do I change the way I dress in order to better personify my new role? It takes a concerted effort not to change who you are just because your position has changed.

A number of years ago, I had a tremendously talented and driven young woman who worked for me. She was bright, passionate, and the star of the department, so I promoted her into her first management position. It turned out to be a disaster. She completely changed her behavior when she was put into a supervisory role. This woman who had been my superstar became a huge problem. And, despite a considerable amount of counseling on the issues, she could not adjust to the new role. I had to demote her, and, not long afterward, she left the company to go to graduate school.

I will never know for sure what caused this young woman to so dramatically change her behavior when she became a manager. Maybe I just made a bad choice and really didn’t know what this woman’s capabilities truly were. I picked the star to manage the department, instead of choosing the person best suited to manage. All of this could be very true.

But I have my suspicions that something else contributed to this young woman’s failure. I suspect that putting her into a role as a manager brought out all of her insecurities. Suddenly she was in uncharted territory and was afraid. In her fear, she changed her behavior in a very negative way. She became overly aggressive, she demeaned people, and she lost her team. All of these behaviors were inconsistent with her previous behavior — but then again she didn’t have any real authority before being promoted. My guess is that this scenario that I saw play out in front of my eyes over the course of a few months is all too common in first-time managers.

The lesson is the same whether you’re a first-time manager or you’ve been doing it for decades. You must be real. If you’re not genuine, people will know. And they will not follow someone who’s a fake. They won’t trust someone who isn’t real. As managers, we must earn the trust of the people who work for us, and the only way to do that is by keepin’ it real.

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