The other day, I was in the final stretch of a run and coming North up the street near my home. Coming South towards me were three ~12-year-olds riding scooters, spread horizontally across the sidewalk. As I was coming towards them, I was expecting one would make way for me to pass. But they didn’t and because there were cars parked along the street on one side and a building on the other, I had to awkwardly squeeze myself between a car and the sidewalk to avoid hitting one of them. And I kind of got the sense these kids were aware of the situation and purposefully not moving out of the way because they thought it was funny. Naturally, my first thought was “what a bunch of little pricks” and I briefly fantasized about having just barreled through them. Fortunately, it was only a fleeting immature and petty thought. I was then thinking if I had acted on that impulse, how pathetic a grown man would look in that situation. Because even if those kids were being little shits, adults are held to a higher standard, and rightfully so.
It reminded me of a situation at Avanti that happened many years ago, when we first started using Microsoft Teams. There was an employee who routinely posted snarky, sarcastic, and ‘know-it-all’ responses in public channels. Mostly in response to other people asking for help or clarification on product related topics. He was older and had significant subject matter expertise and was working in an individual contributor role. It would have been apparent to anyone reading that he was being a jerk. His Manager, who was a newly minted and first-time manager, started posting public and snarky retorts in reply. And even though the Manager was clearly in the right, by mirroring the employee’s poor behaviour, it reflected even more poorly on him than his employee. It reflected poorly because we expect more from our leaders. We hold them to a higher bar. And that feels appropriate; a leader should be held to higher standards.