Annoying Corporate Speak

I need to be kinder. And gentler. And less harsh. I work hard at these things, but between early childhood lessons of the bad kind, my friendly neighborhood panic disorder, and general cultural training that makes cis-het white dudes get super exacting and mean about feedback, I am working a bit uphill on this one. I can be a real bear of a leader if things go poorly or I get stressed, or, which of course never happens, an 18-22 year old does something socially or culturally incorrect or blunt or naive, and it puts me in a mood. My life's work is to be kinder, really, so this isn't a surprise, that I need to continually redouble my efforts to be gentle, but yeah, given the extreme importance of creating a good workplace, I'm absolutely going to say my thing I Will Start To Do is be more kind and gentle to my colleagues and direct reports.

Generally--to mean, there are up to 49% exceptions to this--Men are trained in our culture to approach problems with the answers, and the solutions. (Maybe other cultures too, but I can't comment on those, I don't live in those cultures.) The easiest way I've heard it put is, "the more similar you are to the heroes in the movies, the more likely you are to think that you're supposed to be that hero in real life." We're implicitly and sometimes explicitly trained to think we're supposed to be in charge.

In my experience, both as an individual and as an educator, most men I work with have to or have had to learn that they do not have all the answers, or the solutions, to problems, and that approaching every situation as if you are supposed to be the 'hero' of the moment can get you into trouble, whether alienating folks, 'mansplaining,' or having your solutions crash and burn because you didn't seek feedback/help. It seems like every 'privileged' identity that is added to the list can very easily add to that sense of "I'm supposed to be in charge/supposed to have the answers/solutions." So cisgender vs transgender, heterosexual vs LGBTQUIA folks, white vs nonwhite, effectively everything that adds privilege to an individual's "privileged vs marginalized" balance seems to add to the sense that said straight white cisgender male is supposed to have it handled. I've met and interacted with so many cishet white dudes who then got really insecure/angry about moments when they didn't have the answers, or were caught out/challenged for their answers/solutions. It takes effort, internal balance, humility and self-confidence to be able to accept feedback graciously, especially if you're in the mindset that you *should* be in charge, gosh darn it, and when you're raised at the top of the cultural heap, you might not have a lot of opportunities to learn stuff like humility.

Obviously a balanced/enlightened person is going to see this cultural influence and work against it, and not take the need for society to continue to evolve as an indictment of their specific identity. Everyone gets some kind of cultural load that trains them to be one way, and part of life is learning to unpack that and decide who you are as an individual. But as a cishet white dude who a lot of other cishet white dudes talk to real openly, I've met a disturbing number of cishet white dudes who try very hard to rationalize their behavior and justify being in charge in every situation, who got really mean or nasty when they received critical feedback or made a mistake that someone pointed out. I think there's a lot of privileged folks out there who are pretty scared of what they've decided to view as a diminishment of their power, rather than a 'rising rides raise all ships' scenario like Star Trek promised it would be.