Endangered Species Day
If you are reading this, you may be able to share this personal feeling with me: today is OUR day! It may not be publicly announced, but personally, I feel a strong connection: it’s Endangered Species Day! Congratulations on being alive!
For those of us bucking the corporatese herd, or trying to help herd the corporate cats just showing up to the office can feel like an endangered act. We are the rare breeds unwilling to fully embrace the soulless corporate group-think dominated by politics, empty platitudes, and relentless ass-kissing.
Depending on the size and location of your company, the weapons used to maintain that suffocating sameness could include meaningless “values” statements impossible for a thinking human to authentically embrace, dizzying jargon word salads, excessive power distances elevating the cult of the CEO, continuous corny DEI preaching rarely backed by action, and promotion practices favouring obsequious brown-nosers over competence (and calling it ‘loyalty’, BTW). I forgot virtue signalling – what else? (DM or comment to let me know).
We’ve all been in those soul-crushing meetings where people throw around empty phrases like “moving the needle,” “pivoting,” and “operationalizing synergies” as if they’re profound insights. Well, as you know, they’re not. It’s corporate lingo designed to make you feel dumber and the speaker feel smarter.
Which takes us to the most endangered breed of all – the authentic corporate leader. Hardly any of this species remain in the wild. Too many companies are overrun with ‘busy’, buzzword-vomiting managers more interested in spouting meaningless platitudes than actually connecting with and empowering their teams. Because they are ‘busy’ ‘leaders’.
I can’t think of a single genuine, plain-spoken leader left in a leadership role today. A few may still be holding on by the tips of their claws, but most have been pushed out through their employers’ “safe” precautionary exclusion tactics. Or just realized that continued authenticity was modern quixoticism (that leads, as some of you may recall, to a terminal illness).
Genuine leadership is about clarity, vulnerability and putting people first – the very opposite of disingenuous corporate speak. It’s OK to just say what you mean without wrapping it in eight layers of obfuscating MBA jargon.
So this Endangered Species Day, let’s commit to protecting and reviving that most endangered species – leaders who ditch the lingo and actually relate to employees as human beings. If you know any still dodging extinction, I’d love to meet them. Solidarity, my endangered friends!
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In the meantime, our #COMA Gallery is always open to those craving a dose of leadershit endurance or seeking an extra shot of (de)motivation on the fly, with the VIP entrance perpetually open 24/7 — because sometimes, you deserve exclusive instant access to the absurdity.
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