The Waiting Leader
Here’s a thought
“Who are you to assume I am being patient!”
Frequent business travel means I spend ages waiting around at airports. I’m OK with the planned wait before the scheduled time though I get hacked off when my flight is delayed and all they can tell me is ‘wait in lounge’.
I’m not good at waiting and it transpires I am not alone – in the BBC Radio 4 Programme, “The Waiting”, Raymond Tallis suggests we spend a significant proportion of our lives waiting: for the rain to stop, for our turn, for the kettle to boil, for a train, that phone call, for the pain to subside, for the operation and then to go home, for the lights to turn green, for the bath water to run, for the colleague to stop talking so we can get our word in, for our holiday and then to get back to work, for the phone to charge, for the meeting to start and then to end, for the exam results, for fame, wealth, success and then ultimately our end.
Thinking about it, I need to get better at my waiting; though it doesn’t help when the captain announces a further 55 minute delay and says “thank you for your patience”. The voice in my head is screaming “who are you to assume I am being patient, I am furious here, we should have landed an hour ago.”
Apparently at work, most people are always waiting for more senior people. I remember when I was salaried being asked to join a working party chaired by a director. Ten of us turned up on time and waited ninety minutes for the director who was sat in the room on the other side of the glass partition. The function manager didn’t have the courage to chair the meeting and I didn’t have the courage to get up and leave, so we all sat there for an hour and a half, waiting.
Right now I bet you can think of instances where you are waiting for ‘more senior people’ – a call, a decision, latest on that bid, a response to your email or that promotion which has been on the cards for the last two years.
What if you are the senior, are you
exercising the ancient prerogative of power? Who are you keeping waiting and what is the cost of that: to their productivity and morale, your leadership and the organisation?
Best not assume they are being patient.
The next Leader will be with you on Tuesday the 7th of October.