She’s Got A Great Personality

Funny how whenever someone tells me some woman they are trying to fix me up with, as soon as I hear them say “she’s got a nice personality,” then I know she’s got little else.

Personality is an important thing – it’s part of what makes us who we are. But when a guy tells another guy she’s got a great personality, usually it means she’s not pretty, she may not even be smart, and she may have other fatal flaws.

The same can be said for workplaces.

Everyone at my work is really, really nice. Doesn’t mean it is a great place to work, just means the people are very nice.

When I hear everyone tell me how nice everyone is at the office, it is the same thing as someone telling me a person has a great personality.

I’ve figured that out after living the experience – as we often do. The people at my work are really nice – but the work environment itself is not.

There is no management of any real kind – no project management, little to no executive leadership and although the managers are really really nice, they don’t really lead their teams all that well either.

Leadership comes from the top down in any company. Without it, you won’t have any leadership at the rest of the levels, and you certainly won’t keep the top performing employees on your pay roll – we notice these things.

Although everyone is really really nice, without any leadership, there isn’t enough to keep me at this gig longer than my contract allows. My contract ends in less than 90-days, and I’m already looking forward to moving on.

Though the people are really really nice – that won’t keep me there.

Why?

Well, here’s a good example – the other day we had an executive meeting for a conference we’re putting together. The conference was a week away (or less actually by a day or two) and everyone should be ready – especially the president and CEO.

He admitted the night before the meeting, that although he knows the importance of this conference, which is less than a week away – he still hadn’t written his speech.

Wait a sec – you’re the leader – the TOP leader – the big fish leading all the other smaller fish, and you can’t be bothered to lead by example and have your speech ready on time?

We’re all busting our buns to get this conference going without any problems and you don’t have the decency to get your stuff together at the very least?

I’ve been working outrageously excessive hours for the past month trying to get my stuff done for conference on time – what’s your excuse?

When your employees put in 12-hour days, to be ready, but you don’t – that’s not leadership. That’s dropping the eight ball and hoping it doesn’t make a lot of noise when it come crashing down the hole.

This is just one of far too many examples of the lack of leadership at this company. It is going to be hard to leave in some ways, because the people are really nice. But I’d rather work with assholes that got the job done, than nice people that don’t do shit all.