I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking about what it means to be responsible for other people.
At work, we're in the middle of a discussion about the future of mine and my team's discipline. Some of it is technical. Some of it is organizational. Most of it is definitely politics, whether anyone wants to admit that or not.
I've found myself in executive meetings lately where people senior leaders try to plot a course and enforce work-splits that are almost certainly not completely thought through and are going to have dramatic consequences. We find ourselves arguing a pretext... but understanding the actual subtext makes the stakes and emotions higher. Managing emotions in these types of conversations is nothing new but I find myself today (end of the week) thinking about where the passion comes from to step into these conversations. Why I feel compelled to push against something can be limiting or even harmful to my current career.
For a while I wondered why I kept speaking up. It certainly isn't comfortable. It would be much easier to nod along, let the meeting end, and get back to my own work. Most people have enough going on without volunteering to push back against senior leadership.
Thinking about it makes me realize something. If these discussions only affected me, I'm honestly not sure I'd say much. In this case they don't thought. I have a team.
People have trusted me with part of their careers. They assume I'll notice when something matters. They assume I'll tell them the truth. They assume I'll try to protect the kind of work they joined to do. I keep talking about trust in relationships... but professionally... this is also a heavy thing to carry.
Not because I think I'm uniquely qualified. Quite the opposite. I spend plenty of time wondering whether I'm seeing the situation correctly or whether I'm overreacting. I second-guess myself constantly. But responsibility changes the calculation. The question stops being, "Is this worth the personal risk?" and it becomes, "If I stay quiet and this goes the wrong way, could I honestly tell my team I did everything I reasonably could?"
That feels like a much simpler question.
I've noticed this isn't unique to work. It seems to happen anywhere people genuinely care for others. Parents. Teachers. Coaches. Leaders. Friends.
Responsibility has a strange way of making people a little braver than they would have been on their own.
Not fearless... but perhaps willing to accept a little more discomfort because someone else may end up living with the consequences.
I'm still figuring all of this out. I don't know whether speaking up will change anything. Sometimes it won't. But I think I've finally understood why I keep doing it. It isn't because I enjoy conflict. It's because once someone places their trust in you, staying silent starts to feel like a decision too.