Leadership Sabotage of Millennials in Corporate America
Stories from personal experience and trustworthy sources
The False Premise Cop-Out
Take your pick of think-piece essays generalizing the Millennial Generation and you will find recurring themes. It’s not unique to the Millennials, as every Generation gets a Reputation, so basically the research validates almost any inquiry:
Looking for spoiled brats wanting participation trophies? You’ll find them. Looking for examples of bootstrapping the American Dream to success? They’re in there too.
In the spirit of keeping this focused on useful advice, I will assert a “Negative Narrative” is more prevalent than a “Supportive” one. From there I can explain the tactics to work around unfair perception as much as possible in a Corporate America setting for a Millennial. Assumptions cut two ways.
What is Leadership Sabotage?
There’s a distinct set of conditions that will enable you to see how Leadership Sabotage exists — or doesn’t — in your cube jockey job. For the most part, it’s not a Personal Attack (though it will feel like it) but a strategy of projection by the offender onto one or more targets. Take the blame game and translate it into something visual, some kind of hustle or con, and you get this:
No matter your age or intelligence, there is probably somebody really well skilled in manipulation that will beat you in their environment. They can draw you in, lower your defenses, and play against your hard-earned confidence in life. It is a trap, and the reason it exists is straight up selfishness with a dose of greed.
There are people with high standards, and you should contrast them with people who speak in abstract and always seem to find a way to find fault. You might stress yourself out to the point of vomiting blood in the shower if you let them get to you, but it’s nothing personal. That’s what makes it really hard — balance your desire to achieve with your commitment to survive.
Avoiding Leadership Sabotage is complicated because it takes time to find out the methods of the person at the root of the problem. Do they blame technology for their failures? Do they claim to be so busy they can’t be bothered with actual pressing commitments? Do they suddenly go out of touch and not answer their phone when needed? Do they set the bar so high that any great accomplishment will always fall short?
If you witness a pattern of the above, various combinations might pile up enough to hit the threshold of a case of Leadership Sabotage.
Neutrality is Extremely Difficult
In times of high stakes discussions, there are going to be different perspectives and potential obligations. To be a part of a team means bringing some things in and leaving some things behind. What a Leadership Sabotage situation does is find a way to pit these players against each other. The end result is one of bad communication chaos, so it’s tough to tell how it happened exactly.
Being neutral in this sense is a balance of listening first and saying little second. Identify the conflicting input, accept it came from higher up, and then be smart about changing the scenario. The team has a shared goal, and the Leadership Sabotage only has a goal of self-interest. Don’t directly call this out, just build on the inherent need for people to feel respected.
It’s Not Personal…
Leadership Sabotage is like how Joe Jackson raised his kids and it is painful to watch and even worse to live under.
What results from workplace Leadership Sabotage mistreatment is a very dark thing. Employee Morale starts to tank fast. Attrition increases. New hires interview and then won’t take the job offer even at a premium salary.
The larger the organization, the less likely this situation has a pleasant resolution. There are so many layers to hide within and levers to pull that eventually the tactics can become ingrained. Only the newest ones showing up, probably Millennials, will be able to taste the bitterness and sniff the air for a good whiff of bitterness.
For all the faults of my Generation, we at least have learned by example in a lot of ways, and what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Without any power to enforce change, we learn to get primal — we wait for you to eventually run out of victims and self-destruct. The snake eats its own tail in desperation.
While Leadership Sabotage is a function of a driven and intelligent foe in Corporate America, what about the Idiots and Bullies? Not everybody is built the same way, so finding a path to utility through even the most stubborn of our species is useful…
