Fake office martyrs damage staff morale
Colleagues who pretend to work hard make unhinged work-life balance seem like the norm, writes Tony Featherstone.
Are you an office ‘‘martyr’’ who works weekends and constantly reminds people about your sacrifice? And without realising it, a workplace jerk who hurts office morale?
I considered office martyrs after reading about Stanford University Professor Robert Sutton’s latest book, The A.. hole Survival Guide: How To Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt. He says martyrdom is a factor that encourages leaders to act like jerks.
We’ve all experienced office martyrs: people who work harder and make more sacrifices than their peers – or pretend to – and constantly let everyone know about it. The colleagues who routinely send late-night work emails and go on about how they worked on the weekend.
I was a bit of a martyr early in my corporate career. Hard working and ambitious, I was at work on Sunday when the boss arrived. I was not shy to send emails at night or weave references to weekend work into discussions with superiors.
It was not malicious. If I was genuinely working on weekends to get ahead, I wanted that effort noticed. That required telling people about it and, for the most part, the strategy worked.
Bosses who rewarded staff for extra discretionary hours – rather than encouraging work-life balance – promoted me. Sadly, my weekends died for a flimsy cause.
As a small-business owner, I now find the concept of office martyrdom bizarre. Yet the practice persists: I experienced a martyr this week who went on about his sacrifice – and had been promoted partly because of that discretionary effort.
The truth is, this person is neither productive nor an office star. He just knows how to play the martyrdom game and tell everyone in earshot.
Martyrdom is a challenging management issue. Some martyrs are ideal staff: hard working, loyal, ambitious and willing to make sacrifices to build businesses. But martyrs can also be deceptive, lazy and untalented. Their skill is office politics.
Those ‘‘look how hard I work’’ martyrs damage organisational culture. Constant talk about weekend or late-night work makes unhinged work-life balance seem the norm; not working in your personal time means you are somehow less committed to the organisation.
Unfair promotion of martyrs is damaging. Over the years, I’ve seen martyrs climb over their peers through politics rather than performance. They went on about how hard they worked compared with others, implying they have lazy peers, and were promoted.
Technology aids martyrdom. It is easier to show the boss you are working on weekends or late at night through well-timed emails – and too many gullible managers fall for it.
And for all the talk about worklife balance, there is still a bumson-seats ethos in too many organisations. Unless the boss can see you working, in person or electronically, they do not believe you are making enough effort. That dopey approach favours martyrs.
It is time for workplaces to call out office martyrs with two words: ‘‘shut up’’. Or, ‘‘nobody cares’’.
Better still, ask office martyrs why they insist on working weekends and if there is a problem with their productivity or delegation skills.
Nothing shuts martyrs up faster than bosses who see through the charade and recognise deeper problems.