I promise I’ll resign

While working on a project with a colleague, we stumbled on a road block, we had to figure out how to deal with a problem, and it seemed we had divergent opinions on the matter. He was the head of the project and ultimately the final person to decide, but this wasn’t in a corporate setting where the word of the boss is final. It was more in a social setting where he needed to get everyone on board with his plan.

His idea of a solution wasn’t bad, but it had terrible optics and was quite unpopular with everyone. Yet he was very persistent about going for that solution, this eventually led us into a stalemate and heated debate and in a burst of emotion at the moment, he said “I promise I’ll resign if things don’t go my way”.

It’s important to point out that this was a social setting. He was chosen as the leader through popular vote and wasn’t receiving a salary or anything. Basically, he was doing volunteer work, but his presence was quite significant because there weren’t too many people striving to take a leadership position with no wage and little to no power. In simple terms, not many persons cared about becoming that leader, and we were definitely short-staffed. Up until this point, he had been doing an incredible job, quite frankly, and nothing could be said about his leadership. Yet this one obstacle was putting everything into question.

Giving up so easily

This statement of his alone holds so much to it, whether it's the emotional blackmail, egoism, or willingness to give up when faced with a difficulty, there is much we can dive into, but I’ll focus just on 2. Let’s begin with the willingness to resign.

To be honest, this took me by surprise, because the only few times I’ve seen a person in a position of leadership willing to resign was when their integrity was challenged. They felt their reputation and all that they stood for was no longer possible in that position. Think about the last time you saw a leader willing to resign. It was either after a scandal or an event which tarnished the persons' relationship. Other than that, people in position of power rarely just wake up and decide to resign even when the problems are beyond them to solve. This might just be my experience.

Ingrate job

Other positions of leadership come with a lot of perks, the biggest of which is that you get to boss people around, which is something everyone who aspires to be a leader wants. Then you have other things like managing the budget and getting to shape things the way you like. Resigning from a position of leadership without being forced to by any external factor is quite scarce, you deliberately give up on all your perks to return to a normal life, most people don’t like that.

This is why it was so much of a surprise for me to see this person willing to resign from a position of leadership. But I understood to a certain extent because he really didn’t have many perks, so it didn’t make much of a difference for him. Also, seeing a leader give up because of a difficulty was something new and quite destabilizing. Of all the people in the team, the last person to think about giving up should be the leader. If the leader abandons, then its pretty much over for everybody else. His morale has a direct impact on everyone else.

Emotional blackmail

Another issue was the fact that he tried to blackmail everyone in order to have his way, that was quite frankly of poor taste, but I understood that it certainly came from his pride and egoism. Another thing which certainly played a part was his lack of experience. He was put into this position just because nobody else would step up, so he didn’t have much of a choice. That’s why it was easier for him to be willing to resign at any moment things got tough, and his actions afterward are just a result of his inexperience.

The way to go

Leadership is definitely not something I play with because I understand not just the difficulty of it, but also the impact it can have. Even though I wish leaders didn’t have that much of an impact on their community or at least their actions weren’t exponential, the reality is that we are social creatures. We give a very great importance to hierarchy.

Above everything else, we know inherently that we have to pick our cues all from the person at the top of the hierarchy. Becoming a leader means the fate of the people you lead depends entirely on your competence. It’s hard to see a thriving community with a bad leader and vice versa. That’s also why the competence of a leader is always judged on the basis of the people he leads.

Seeing this colleague of mine’s willingness to give up and abandon all the people who trusted in him and were willing to follow him was heartbreaking to say the least. But there isn’t much of a choice here when the only options you have are bad and nothing. There isn’t much of a lesson I take out of this experience, all it has showed me is how difficult the world is and why many people struggle in their personal lives too. This person might think that giving up is the solution for him, but this reveals a deeper mentality in him, which is the ease with which he gives up when things get tough. This means in his personal life things might just be worse.

How I handled the situation

I quickly realized many factors were at play here, and I opted for a solution which I believed would be the best way forward. It's important to realize that the lapses of a person doesn’t necessarily define them. We can all make mistakes at the moment, that doesn’t mean we are always going to be this person. I believe this colleague has great potential as a leader, he still has some rough edges which need to be sharpened up, but I think we can get there. Instead of getting heated and aggravated I chose to take a much more moderate tone and see to it that we give his way at least a shot, sure it wasn’t the most convenient solution, but I think it was much more important for us to come to an agreement than me winning an argument with him.

Conclusion

This situation showed me just how easy it is for people to enter into conflicts and what leadership is all about. There is a fine line to thread between being arrogant, optimistic, confident, egotistical, proud, humble etc sometimes our actions cut through all of this at the same time but it's important that they all take us to the right place.

Thanks for reading ☺️