I got a call the other day from a former work colleague and current friend who, justifiably, was in a state of extreme exasperation with her "superiors" in the organization she works for. Listening to her concerns and recognizing the intense state of frustration she was in took me back to my own days of working for less than competent bosses.
In her case she is in the even more unenviable position of not only having her direct boss be totally useless (actually "totally useless" would be overstating the value of this individual to the work), but the direct boss's boss is completely out of her depth. It's like the two are in some kind of "nuclear arms race of incompetence" -- each trying to outdo the other in making one ill-conceived decision after another. Still another friend familiar with the situation describes the situation as like the "blind leading the retarded" (forgive me for being very un-PC in sharing that comment but it is just sooo apropos).
So as I was listening, I could feel my stomach churning with the same feeling of a mixture of anxiety and hopelessness that I had when I was in a similar situation. At the heart of it is this simple truism, the culture of an organization is dictated from the top. This is particularly true with an organization like my friend's -- one that is small and basically flat in it's organizational structure. The saddest aspect of the situation is that my friend is immensely bright, talented, and has just the most sincere desire to make a difference in the work she's doing, yet the folks in "leadership" of the organization make all of her best efforts virtually for naught. There is nothing worse than being a work situation where you are giving a 110% effort and the organization is not only not progressing, it's actually regressing.
So what do you do when you find yourself in a situation like this, when the leader isn't leading. Well, first, don't do what I have tended to do. Don't allow your devotion to the work keep you in a situation that is sucking your soul dry far longer than you should. You see sucking your soul dry is the one thing that incapable leaders tend to do well. They have this uncanny ability to take advantage of their best employees. You're capable of doing a job that takes the nimrod who is your peer (or, in my friend's case, "boss") twice as long and you do it with twice the quality to boot. Guess what? The incapable leader will give you the task that the "nimrod" dropped the ball on with half the time you should have gotten to do the job well and then hound you about why it isn't done yet. To top it all off, when you do deliver, neither the nimrod or the leaderless wonder will acknowledge that you came in yet again and saved the day.
If you find yourself in a situation that sounds even remotely similar to the preceding description then this is what I think you should do (and what I told my friend). You take care of you. You reasses what it is that you want to be doing with your life and you devote all of your creative energy to finding that. You call, e-mail, send letters out to everyone you know and some you don't, letting them know that you're looking and would appreciate whatever help they could provide. You search on the internet for opportunities. You look in the classifieds. You pray. You keep your eyes and ears open to the universe shifting and making your next move known to you. You go to whatever lengths you have to to get yourself to a place that values your skills, your experience and your work ethic -- a place where you can fulfill your vocation, giving your God-given talents in service to making a difference in your corner of the world.
It is not your responsibility to save the organization you work for no matter how laudable the mission it has. There are other people that have that role of ensuring the well-being of the organization (in the nonprofit world we call those people part of the governance of the organization, and there's a reason that's the term that's used).
Finding your new opportunity is now your full-time job, but also keep this in mind. Never run from something, run to something. Go to an opportunity that you believe to be the best one possible (certainly be confident that it will be much better than the one you're in). Remember, you take care of you. You're certainly more than worth it.
