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Comment by mooreds | Hacker News Reader

> I immediately became fiercely loyal to that manager and the organization, and I wanted to work harder for them.

Did you improve? Did you provide the results needed by the organization? Did you work better (not simply harder)?

Forgive me if this seems like an overly familiar set of questions, I'm not quite sure how else to frame them.

It's great to be loyal; it helps both parties make long term investments, engenders trust, and ensures stability.

But loyalty to a bad manager is no good. Similarly, loyalty to a report who is over their head and continues to be unable to improve at the speed needed is not good.

Source: I have both been over my head and had reports in over their head.

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Regardless of the outcome, I believe this trust is a necessary precondition for someone to turn it around. So this relationship doesn’t guarantee success, but lacking it does guarantee failure.

Agreed you need to have trust for it to work out.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can trust and it still doesn't work out.

It took me a long time to realize I wasn't a great fit for every job. Now I try to lean into my strengths and acknowledge my weaknesses. For instance, please never hire me for my design sense (see my personal blog at https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/ for proof of that).

It's really hard to acknowledge weaknesses, especially when employment/$$$ are at stake. But it is important to do so.

I think if my meeting with my manager went another way I think I might have spent more time looking for an escape route rather than focusing on the tasks at hand. Someone who thinks they're going to be fired can sometimes cause a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thanks for the reply, totally get that the manager averted a self fulfilling prophecy of losing a valued employee.

Did you end up succeeding at the job because of the trust offered by your manager?

Yes, I don’t wanna give too many personal details but I gave them a lot of solid work for years after that.

Some in the comments suggested a differentiator about my performance gap was my self awareness that I was doing poorly - I certainly had an anxiety problem in general that was getting in the way beyond work too, but knowing my manager really had my back went very far. I knew of course that I could still get fired, but it meant a lot to me that no one was jumping at the chance.

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