Was your manager competent enough to guide you in building your career?

I have had a few weird and unusual experiences in my life, especially, in the workplace. Those experiences compelled me to wonder about the work ethics that are followed in these places as many of such practices adversely affected my career as well as others too.

But before beginning what I endured let's read a story first:-

The Story of a gem-cutter

Once upon a time, there was a gem-cutter who was not so skilled in his trade. But he was a favorite of his master.

One day his master gave him a very precious stone to cut into a beautiful piece of jewel. The gem-cutter could not do it properly. He broke it into several pieces.

His master realized his mistakes and soon replaced him with a skilled one. The new gem-cutter collected the pieces of this broken gem and cut each one of them beautifully. They are now smaller in size but they shone brilliantly.

The mistake done by the jewel shop owner was that he relied on somebody based on favoritism and not on the skills he possessed to perform a task and this led to the disastrous result.

Managers and Team Leaders are The Gem-cutters in our Life

Shaping our career is just like cutting the gemstone and giving it a proper shape and size that will bring out the brilliance inside. It will shine always and will never lose its luster even when it has become an antique. A good career path will eventually bring you success and you will shine in your field of work always. But if your career does not get the boost, the support it needs at the right time, it will nosedive under the wrong guidance and will eventually shatter like the broken gemstone.

Let the master of this story be replaced by the owner of a company. Now replace the stone with a highly motivated and skilled employee, the unskilled gem-cutter with a bad manager, and the skilled gem-cutter with a good manager. Did you find any similarity in the experiences you have in your life? Some of you probably have.

A good team leader will always help you grow in your career. But a bad manager can take good staff and destroy it, causing the best employees to flee and the remainder to lose all motivation.

I have often seen this happen in offices where I worked and heard in cases of my friends. Bad management or leadership is widespread in our country and most companies appoint managers who adopt unfair means to manage teams. Company CEOs hardly pay any attention to whatever politics is being played in a team under an incapable manager unless and until they face a drop in productivity. By the time they find out, many of the good employees have already left the company or have lost the motivation to work hard.

It's tough to judge some of the managers whom I have encountered in my life. But now, as the time has come to look back and see how I have excelled in my career under all of these managers and team leaders, whether I have become a brilliantly shining jewel or some broken useless pieces of a gemstone, I do need to evaluate honestly.

Continued to Part 2: Self-Teaching was a Way to Attain My Moksha