I think the best supervisors I ever had were able to feel--and express--regret and remorse. This scene from one of my favorite movies reminded me of this when I watched it again recently. And I wondered how such a scene would have played out in this COVID19 pandemic environment in which so many people are not allowed to reach out and physically touch each other.
It reminded me, too, of a casual (but earnest) conversation I had last year with an older colleague to whom I am somewhat endeared. We were exchanging thoughts and questions. "Did you ever shout at any subordinates in front of their coworkers?" "Did you apologize to them later?" "Did you apologize in front of their coworkers?" And so on.
Colleges can have some smart people, no doubt. But they can also have so many heartless bastards. Real assholes. People who are not merely immature or "flawed," but people who have the more devastating cluster-B personality disorders. Or just plane "evil," to use the vernacular that so many of us have used a few times.
It's humbling. I look back. There are some things I wish I'd done differently.
--Southern Bubba, Ph.D.
My life could have been so much easier if only I'd been a different person. But I like to think I avoided the worst excesses that you see among academics. What academics think they know about leadership and management is much like what they think they know about writing: much of it is flat-out wrong.
ReplyDeleteHey, you missed the best part of "Going in Style," Bubba: the bank robbery!
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