Powerful or powerless?

A phone call from a friend in one of the leading intellectual institutions in India just confirmed it The similarity of experiences is uncanny. Its been a while since I have been thinking about human behavior in a work place. The only advice I can give myself is baby handle it or bail out.

Not one to quit, however the scales seems to tip towards the whole effort being senseless.

Lately in a training program, the trainer seemed to repeatedly mention me trying to behave like a kid and not showing the world the true woman that I am. It could be a defense mechanism to retain innocence and not change despite blatant events which push you to realizing that being hardened by reality is necessary.

Insecurity and in decisiveness masked by power and abrasive confidence seems to be present in all organizations irrespective of the nature of work. In an academic institution it is about Intellectual property, in a company it is about business orientation. I have a sneaky feeling that its not about leadership at all now. In India where human resource is scarce in any industry, there are bound to be people who are not skilled at what they are supposed to do at any level. This is perfectly alright as I truly believe, sales is not about the product. In sales you gotta learn the technique and not just the product. Product knowledge happens along the way, the skill set is in understanding client requirement and building trust.

Similarly if one is not skilled and has reached senior management soon, the attitude of learning and not masking it is important. Do you have the guts to say, I have no idea, but I shall be the best at it soon? Or can you agree to the fact that you are so confused as you have no clue of what to do in some tasks, yet you will follow your gut and if you don't have that too, you will let your team who does, do it without interrupting or creating hurdles for them?

Sorry folks, this does not happen in real life. Human tendency is to masquerade insecurity. It is a defense mechanism which one may not even realize. Though I must mention that I am not a great believer of this and still would like to maintain that every individual in the end knows the intent behind their actions. The sad part is when these people are in positions of power which is oft the case.

The learning - you have to handle it. Yes you may argue that the joy of working vanishes. Well folks you better find work that gives you joy. The high could be in research, teaching, technology, mentoring, achieving targets, building great products or companies...whatever...but if you have not found what makes you tick, you are bound to not find the whole experience worth it in the end. Maybe the powerful people have no power over you if you actually enjoying what you do.