DANGER, Do NOT love your employer!

It’s a dangerous thing to fall in love with your employer.  I’m not talking about your boss, although that has its own set of risks.  I’m talking about thinking that just because you love working for your employer, your employer is going to love you back. It won’t happen.  I’ve spent much of my career working in higher education, and it’s not unusual to have a young graduate try to find a job with her alma mater.  She may love the college town atmosphere, the sports, the libraries, and the arts, but her university is incapable of returning that affection.  Its not limited to university employment.  I’ve heard many, many others tell me that they just love working for their companies.  They usually go on to list their favorite things about that job:  the benefits, the hours, the short commute, the challenge, the opportunity, etc. But an employer cannot and will not return the loyalty.

So where’s the danger in that?  You set yourself up for a huge emotional crash if you expect an organization to make decisions and act like a person.  Your family should love you unconditionally; but don’t expect your employer to do so, no matter how many raises or awards or accolades you’ve achieved. Just ask Tiger Woods, Mike Leach or Conan O’Brien. When the time comes, your employer will make a cold, dispassionate business decision.  If you expect that from your employer it won’t lessen the surprise or ease the pain when it happens to you; but sometime in the days ahead you’ll realize it wasn’t personal, it was just business. And then you can better pick yourself up and get on with the rest of your life.  So no matter how great your current job is, do not love your employer!

Leading at a Higher Level

Ken Blanchard writes that leaders should focus on four characteristics in uncertain times:

• Be a bearer of hope;
• Be realistic, but don’t listen to the negativity;
• See your people as business partners; and
• Be servant leaders, not self-serving leaders.

It seems to me that that HR leaders should adopt Blanchard’s approach for all times.

• Bearers of hope. There’s nothing worse than a pessimist in HR.  I can take realism (see the point below), sarcasm, and maybe even some cynicism; but those who only focus on the worst possible outcomes drag everyone down.  Too often the pessimist’s message becomes a self-fulfillingprophesy. At the end of the day give me the HR leader who can help put bad news in perspective and point us to the hope that tomorrow will be another chance to improve.
• Realistic, but not negative.  Bad news, especially “breaking” bad news reported by the media is almost always wrong.  The seasoned HR leader will wait for the whole story to emerge and then analyze the situation before speaking.  That way she can be realistic, but not negative. In fact, there may be some good news hidden in with the bad, which would allow her to also be the bearer of hope (see the point above.)
• See employees as partners.  When I see that a colleague has crossed the point beyond which he sees all employees as problems, troublemakers, whiners, etc. it’s time he moved on.  He’s become a pessimist (see the first point above.)  Usually the surest way out of a bad situation is to partner with employees in realistically focusing on the positive, and then acting on it.
• Be servant leaders, not self-serving leaders.  This point has to do with integrity.  If HR is among the first to abandon hope and abandon ship, it will be seen as self-serving.  On the other hand, if HR models the behaviors described in the first three bullet points, other employees will be encouraged to act reasonably and responsibly.

Most employees can handle uncertain times at work.  HR can help in that process by consistently modeling good leadership, in both certain and uncertain times.