Comment by nulagrithom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nulagrithom | Hacker News Reader

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> While it is true that misery loves company, no one loves working for a leader who doesn't portray confidence in the team's trajectory and success. People want to be inspired, and as their leader, it is your job to give them the motivation and vision to perform.

> This means that even when things are bad, or you feel frustrated, you don't let it show. You need to be the person who is positive and who helps motivate people to do their best. If you don't, then who will?

I'm not sure how much I agree with that part.

One of the "child" companies of the company I'm working for has run in to some trouble. There's definitely a culture of "putting on a happy face", as described above, but it gets tough to believe when you know something is wrong. None of the C-levels would give details.

Recently the board president showed up at an IT meeting and said "They're in deep shit guys," and spelled the whole dire situation out for us.

That was inspiring. Everyone in the room was motivated to "fix" it.

Conversely, I've also been part of a company where leadership did nothing but talk about how much we're going to grow, all the way up until half the staff got laid off in one fell swoop. It wasn't motivating or inspiring at all. It was actually deeply concerning.

I don't think this is as easy to sum up by simply saying "when things are bad, or you feel frustrated, you don't let it show."

I think the author's point wasn't to suggest leaders should paper over problems, but that leaders shouldn't stoop to complaining or letting their frustration show in front of their reports. They can be frank and truthful with employees, while still remaining confident that the challenges can be overcome.

I much prefer leaders who let their anxiety known to me than those that project absolute confidence that whatever problems can be overcome. I can trust the former, I can’t trust the latter at all, and it’s super easy to tell.

> ...when things are bad, or you feel frustrated, you don't let it show. You need to be the person who is positive ...

I agree that this sounds more like denial than grit. Maybe it wasn't intended, but I've also seen it in real life. And besides being bad leadership, it's sometimes unethical (dishonest and harmful).

A little cheesy, but whenever I hear about this sort of thing I always think of this scene from Saving Private Ryan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKbdE5LOGNQ

Its all about authenticity. On average, the more positive a picture a leader paints of the future, the better, as long as it’s believable and rooted in truth.

There’s huge latitude to give a more positive or negative vibe while still staying reasonably within the constraints of facts.

Some people are so charismatic they don’t even need to respect the constraints, but a lot of times that doesn’t end well.

Meanwhile, the advice is to sugar coat bad situations, which is certainly a flavor of dishonesty.

The tier of management matters here. The boss you are eye-to-eye with should put pragmatism before sunshine. The boss' boss and above are all probably better off being pathologically positive in front of their direct report's subordinates each.

Your immediate boss really should tune into the personality of their team members both individually and in aggregate in group settings. With luck, you were hand-picked by your boss and that means aspects of your personality are preferred, aka: culture fit. Sardonic cynical attitudes are reasonable, when trading humor and letting off steam, which boosts morale, but as with all performance, timing is everything, and good teammates understand this implicitly.

If shit is getting real, people owe it to each other to deliver solid news and not bullshit whitewash, but in group settings rumor mills are deadly, and information has to be controlled to prevent panics.

Good captains go down with the ship. They signal when to use the life boats. Would you rather have a boss who is sunshine all day, right up until the moment they fly the coop, and are never seen again? In practice this is almost invariably a really bad thing. Because even if your boss sucked, their boss will fill the intervening position with almost anyone (declining in-group promotions), and permit them next manager to reshape their team of direct reports as needed, which can disintegrate into a slow motion bloodbath of firings.

The reverse of a manager's disappearing act is the mass layoff, surprising a large class of subordinates (your boss disappears because, in fact, the company disappears as you lose your job). The inverse of a manager's disappearing act is he subordinate rage-quitting (a single subordinate employee disappearing, without other employees depending on their role is reasonable and conscionable, although stress is still induced by such an event).

I hope we were agreeing, we seem to share some viewpoints and I definitely do not think sugarcoating, which has its own connotations, is a best practice.

It all sounds like imprecise tight rope walking but I think there are basic tests. People can be skeptical talking to you, but when they leave is the word bullshit still active in their mind? For me that means the message was not delivered well.

It all has real consequences too. When any group of people face adversity, there’s no magic to make it all better. But final result can be objectively better or worse based solely on quality of communication, or even just basic respect for people.

> This means that even when things are bad, or you feel frustrated, you don't let it show. You need to be the person who is positive and who helps motivate people to do their best. If you don't, then who will?

A way to loose trust. The best managers I had were open about problems. Overtime, I got sick of being told how great everything is when we were drawing in problems.

Sounds a little like stoic philosophy and why that appeals to some.

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