I’ve been following a discussion in recent days on LinkedIn about a blog posting by Jonathan Brown entitled Working late is no excuse.  The title succinctly captures the core message in an e-mail sent by the Managing Partner at a law firm to address lateness by fee earners – that working late in the evening is no excuse for a late start in the morning.  A reflection of our era, the e-mail clearly reached the desk of the author and went on (if Mr Brown is correct) to “go viral”.

It took me back to a time when I worked extensively with one of London’s “big five” law firms, back in the late 80s and early 90s. Many of my contemporaries (including some of my buddies in the London Symphony Chorus – how did they do it?) were young lawyers working their socks off in this and other firms. They knew they would get a partnership or a nice juicy job outside the firm and experienced the long hours as a fair exchange. As the recession bit, though, the “jam tomorrow” become a possibility rather than a certainty so that people began to reconsider their options. Notwithstanding the recession (threat of redundancy etc.) young lawyers started to think twice about putting in so many hours.

One commentator on the LinkedIn thread crisply summed up one point of view:  “This is another example of lazy management – managing what’s easy (the number of hours people are in the building) as opposed to what’s important (what they achieve for the organisation). How many examples have we all witnessed over the years, of managers judging their staff by how long they are sitting at their desks as opposed to by what they actually accomplish while sitting there? It’s sad to think that even in a law firm top management can’t come up with a smarter way of evaluating its staff’s contribution”.

Sometimes, managing time in this way is indeed a proxy for more meaningful management of performance, as if time equals – in the long run – results.  We all know it doesn’t, but what do we do differently if we want to manage performance pending the results?  As it happens, I recently initiated another thread on LinkedIn about the use of a coaching style of leadership.  As I write I think of some of the sales managers I have interviewed over the years – for developmental purposes, assessment or promotion – who have described sitting down with members of their team and asking them in considerable detail about how many calls or visits they are making per day or week and with what outcomes.  This kind of on-the-job coaching gets under the skin of “hours per week” and can give a real boost to staff performance.  In short, it’s possible that our Managing Partner just didn’t stop to think about what’s really important in the workplace and how to manage staff in ways that boost real performance.

It’s also possible that he committed an entirely different error (though, I confess, I doubt it) – the error of failing to explain adequately why an action or expectation is important.  I recognise that this is something I have to remind myself to do – because at times something seems so obvious to me I think it doesn’t need saying.  Often it does.  Reading the Managing Partner’s e-mail it’s not clear how a few minutes’ lateness impacts on performance or why turning up on time really matters.

It certainly seems to be a general view that the tone of the e-mail – familiar to me, I confess, from dipping my toes from time to time into legal waters – is unlikely to raise levels of motivation and engagement across this particular firm.  But this, perhaps, is a topic worth unpacking in another blog posting.  I’ll leave it for another day.

So, you did it.  Like Maestro Papadopoulos (see Lost your temper with your staff?  You may have lost more besides), you spoke sharply with a member or members of your staff.  Time has elapsed.  You realise you made a mistake in speaking in the way you did.  You’ve taken time to process your anger.  You’ve learnt from the experience.  What next?

You may be hoping that it’s enough to show up differently next time.  If you do, you’ll be joining the legions of bosses who, having lost their temper, are “extra nice” next time round – but it’s not enough.  Why?  After all, surely your staff can tell that you’re sorry from your behaviour?  Well, yes, and still, knowing this alone is not enough.

What more do your staff want?  They want understanding for the experience they had on the receiving end of your anger.  They want to know that you understand the impact it had on them – some call this empathy.  They want to know that you’re ready to take responsibility for your actions and eager to learn to handle things differently in future.  This helps them to feel safe.  They also want judgement – discernment, acceptance:  even if (especially if) you have to deal with performance that is below par, they need to know that you can separate them – the person, the people – from their behaviour.  These needs may be hidden from your staff behind their own “righteous anger” towards you – unless they have high levels of emotional maturity they won’t forgive you until you’ve expressed your regret.

Now, I do want to differentiate between expressing your regret and saying sorry.  This isn’t about beating yourself up or putting yourself in the wrong.  Nor is it about the kind of insincere apology that London commuters make even as they push you to one side to get to where they want to go.  This is about connecting with, and expressing, your sincere regret.  For Maestro Papadopoulos, such an expression might have gone something like this:

“I said a couple of things I regretted at our rehearsal on Tuesday.  I said it wasn’t acceptable to me that members of the choir were missing from our rehearsal and I said it in a way which put those of you who’d made the effort to get here on time in the wrong.  And I also compared the children’s choir with the ‘famous London Symphony Chorus’ in a way that put your choir in a bad light.  Afterwards I felt bad about this because I realised it was my nerves talking – I wanted to offer our audience a great performance and I felt anxious about the concert.  I also realise that, as amateur singers many of you came to sing at the end of a hard days work in preparation for a concert and the last thing you needed was to be on the receiving end of my anger.  I wish I had handled the situation with more grace”.


There is at least one paradox at play here, as there often is in life.  The first is this:  that beating ourselves up (“I made a right mess of that rehearsal… I shouldn’t have said what I did…” etc.) somehow doesn’t lead us to take responsibility for our actions.  Rather, it takes courage and self compassion to really step up to the plate.  A second paradox is this:  as leaders, it is our very ability to express our sincere regret about actions which fell below our aspirations that make our staff think highly of us.  We need to accept ourselves as human, just like everybody else, before we can make the kind of expression of regret that staff can receive.


So, I have said about as much as I want to say right now on the subject of losing your temper with your staff.  I wonder, what has been your experience?  And what have you found in these postings that has enabled you to do things differently?  I’d love to hear about your experiences via the comments section of this blog.

Without fail, singing with the London Symphony Chorus inspires me – and often to write a blog posting.  Sometimes, the inspiration is “not in a good way”. This is the way it was last Tuesday.

It started well for me – I arrived early and listened to young pianist Benjamin Grosvenor rehearsing Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor for half an hour before rehearsal began.  He was playing some stretches and some brief extracts – repeating phrases over and over as part of his preparation.  It was a reminder of the many years of practice that lead to concert standard.  Several days later I found myself singing Grieg in my head as I went to sleep.  What a beautiful piece!

Then our 5pm tutti rehearsal started.  A touch of Grieg and onto Carmina Burana.  How quickly things went down hill!  Within minutes Maestro Papadopoulos was expressing his dissatisfaction that members of the Choir were missing and in a manner I found rather unpleasant.  I was having such thoughts as “Don’t take it out on me that some people aren’t here – I’ve made the effort to turn up!” and “If you want me to sing well for you, try treating me with respect”.  I was also having other thoughts I prefer not to share online.  Later, when the raggazi (children) rehearsed their contribution, the Maestro told them how well they’d done – better perhaps than the “famous London Symphony Chorus”.  It was clear he was angry.  So were members of the chorus – as people left the platform after rehearsal everyone’s backs were up.

We had a few minutes with Roger Sayer, in the role of Chorus Director, who was quick to acknowledge our feelings of anger – and also to remind us to sing well for the sake of the chorus if not for the Maestro himself.  Afterwards, as I ate my supper, I reflected on the fears that often lie behind anger – was the Maestro feeling nervous, perhaps?  And I took time to use a well-honed technique to let go of the anger I felt before going on stage.  It was enough to help me to focus my energies on singing well and still, I noticed that I took a little pleasure when the Maestro made a rather obvious mistake during the concert and also that I didn’t warm to those after-the-concert didn’t-you-do-well signs from the Maestro.  Not for me the cycle of punishment and reward!

The trouble is this:  that anger begets anger.  Not anger per se but the expression of our angry thoughts as if they are some inviolable and objective truth. (They’re not).  As a leader we lose our authority and the respect of those we lead when we express our anger in this way.  We also risk losing the best contribution of those we lead:  people need to know that you’re working with them – on the same side – to feel safe to acknowledge their mistakes as well as to risk their best performance.  Far better to play it safe if you expect a rollocking every time the boss is not happy.

I want to be clear:  we’re all angry at times.  So a key challenge for us as leaders – as well as partners, parents, children, human beings… – is to know how to respond when we’re angry.  One of the worst things we can do is to hold on to the idea that somehow we were “right”.  This opens up a widening gulf between ourselves and those we lead.  And in case you’re wondering “what else can I do?” keep reading – I’ll be offering some thoughts during the days ahead with all the humility of someone who, like you, gets angry at times.