Some time ago, during an important team meeting, a manager proposed an idea that I and many of my colleagues knew was unwise. Conflict with this manager is a daunting prospect, and only one of us spoke up – they were polite and respectful.
The manager thanked my colleague for their input, but the project went ahead unchanged. It was the disaster many of us thought it would be. When the full cost of the mistake became clear, the manager lost their cool and our team was reprimanded for not “flagging problems” back in the meeting. Was it legitimate to blame us for not “pushing back” strongly enough and failing to “take ownership”?
I’ll give you the answer to your ultimate question straight away: no. There was no valid reason to blame you for the failure of the project.
There might have been if you and your peers had held your tongues out of spite. By engaging in what’s known as malicious compliance – knowing the idea was doomed to fail but saying nothing to teach the manager “a lesson” or because you wanted to revel in their embarrassment – you would have had a level of complicity.
Equally, if the idea was proposed in good faith, but the manager simply didn’t have information held only by people in the meeting room, they might understandably be upset that you withheld that knowledge.
But neither of those things happened.
This is a place where leaders make all the decisions and are immune from responsibility or consequences.
When I say “in good faith” in this case, I mean that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion – that it was a genuine idea to be followed by a serious discussion rather than a pronouncement dressed as a proposal. From what you’ve said in your longer email, I doubt that was the case.
The reason everyone except one brave soul stayed quiet in the meeting seems to me a problem of the culture of your workplace.
I get the strong sense this is an organisation where fear reigns. There’s a thin pretense of democracy and collegiality stretched tight over the top of an oligarchy or autocracy. I use those words not to mean that some managers are a bit gruff or overbearing – that could be said of many workplaces.
I mean that this is a place where leaders make all the decisions and are immune from responsibility or consequences.
This creates an absurd paralysis where everyone below this manager’s level knows they’ll be blamed if a project goes wrong, but also know that if they attempt to intervene before the fatal error is made, they’ll be treated (and possibly punished) as some kind of workplace dissident.
The fact that in this case someone did put up their hand and that their ultra-courteous reservations were noted in a civil manner may look from the outside like a system working as it should. But given the prevailing culture of the place, it sounds to me like a carefully choreographed dance rather than a serious business discussion.
As I’ve repeated often in Work Therapy (so often, regular readers will probably be rolling their eyes at the end of this sentence), being even a passably good manager is immensely difficult. It would be harder still if you had a stake in the organisation or were its founder – financial and emotional investment often go hand in hand. But the challenging nature of the job doesn’t excuse the game-playing and circular logic you’ve been exposed to.
Even if the suggestion made in the meeting was not a fait accompli, and the manager was genuinely seeking advice, the idea that the project failed because you and your peers didn’t make a convincing enough argument against a flawed idea is ludicrous. You can’t establish a walking-on-eggshells atmosphere and then become aggrieved when people refuse to stomp.
The assertion that staff at your level didn’t take “ownership” is such flagrant projection, it sounds almost cartoonish.
Perhaps this manager has genuinely deluded themselves into believing that the project failed because of everyone else’s incompetence. You and your colleagues have no obligation at all to accept such a fanciful interpretation of the facts.
This was the manager’s proposal, plain and simple. The project failed because it was so manifestly ill-conceived. They only have themselves to blame and until they take a more adult approach to their leadership, similar failures will presumably continue long into the future.
Jonathan Rivett is a writer based in Melbourne. He’s written about workplace culture and careers for more than a decade.From our partners
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