So being a leader is hard. It is hard. You are managing multiple projects, priorities. You're managing people's time. You're managing people's personalities and attitudes.

And then you still have your own work, own deliverables that you have to worry about. So I tell people all the time, don't rush to be the boss. Don't rush to be that senior VP or whatever or director of this or this or that and having all these lofty titles without understanding from the people management aspect what you're actually getting into. It is a lot and it's not for the weak, it's not for somebody who feels like okay this is bullshit I'm done or whatever, but you really have to be engaging. It's almost like you're in this customer service type of position because you got to figure out what your team needs.

You have to figure out what makes your team work, what makes them effective, what type of manager or I don't even like to use that term, what type of leader do you need to be to make sure that number one, your team is going to show up to work every day, do the job that they need to do without you hovering over their shoulder. You have to make sure that they have the technical expertise and the knowledge to get the job done again. So you're not hovering over their shoulders because if you're spending a good part of your day telling your team what to do, giving them directions, giving them instructions, you are wasting time and you are not allowing them to show you what they can actually do. You are not allowing them to show you that their brains work and they probably have a better way of doing something than the way that you're telling them to do it. So my approach is I will tell you where we are, which is the problem more than likely.

I will tell you where we need to be, which is the solution. And then I want to give you the autonomy to get us there. Of course, I'm here for support, bounce ideas off of, but I want to know what you can do. I know what my brain can do and I don't want to just do a brain dump of what I'm thinking and tell you to replicate that same thing. I want to see what you can do because you might get to the point where you're getting this done three hours faster than me, or you're in the system every day.

You probably found some shortcuts or some type of function that can help get this done more effectively. So don't be in a rush to get in that boss's seat. There is a lot. And when I was working in corporate, a big part of my role was just managing people, their expectations and their attitudes. That alone can be a time consuming, a draining, a mentally exhausting process because you have to be open to hearing what people love about their job and you have to be open to hearing what they hate.

And I've worked in environments where some of the employees just had nothing good to say. And I'm like, what the hell are you doing here? If you feel that way, why do you get up every morning, sit in this Atlanta traffic just to come in here to bitch, moan, gripe and complain and spread all of your bad vibes across my whole department? If you feel like that, why are you here? And I have really had these actual conversations with people because I wanna know the good and the bad.

Me knowing both sides helps me go back to my drawing board to say, okay, this ain't working. This ain't working. Let me figure out something else so that I can try to turn the tad and make it an environment that's conducive to you wanting to be there and conducive to you doing well. And a lot of times I've had these conversations, these one on ones, these manager employee one on ones that you should be having with your boss or your employees on a consistent basis, just to always get a feel for where they are. Water break.

But you should always be doing this with your employees or with your manager. Sometimes you have to initiate it. You have to manage your manager. If you don't have ongoing conversations with your boss, how do you know what they think? How do you know if you're meeting their expectations?

And some of those discussions are gonna be uncomfortable for both parties. I've had conversations where I would just ask people, what's working for you right now? What's not? What could you change? And it turns into, I don't wanna say complaining, which, I mean, that's part of it, but it just the person went on and on and on.

I remember this specific example where I asked somebody this. I said, what what's what's going on? Why why are you so angry? Like, what is going on? I just had to close the door and have a real conversation.

You know, corporate shit out the door, but just real life. What is going on? Why do you have a attitude every time you walk in the door? And I sat there. I let her talk.

I listened. She had a lot to say. Well, this ain't right and duh duh duh. And this person's an asshole and I'm tired of doing this, this, and this. And just every complaint you could think of.

And then I said, so what do we need to do to change this? What do you think needs to happen? What are your ideas? What do you think we should do? Crickets.

Nothing to say. So that told me a lot about that person. Now granted, I listened to what she said. I I made some notes of things that she complained about because she had some very valid points, but a lot of her her monologue was emotionally charged. And she was just beyond being at work.

She just seemed like her whole twenty four hours were just, fuck my life. I'm mad. I'm angry about something. Even when she wasn't at work, I can tell she was just upset about something. And so those type of people, you can't really do anything about those circumstances.

But I say all of that to say there are a lot of people who have opinions. There are a lot of people in corporate. It might be you, it might be your peers, it might be your boss or whoever who have gripes and complaints, but what are you going to do about it? If you have six or seven different complaints and zero solutions, what are you doing? What are you doing?

And I watched this video on Instagram the other day. The guy's name is Paul Paul James Orlando, I think. Let me let me double check and make sure that's right. Yeah. His name is Paul James Orlando, and he's like a career coach.

I don't know his exact title, but he's like a career coach. He has some good content on his page. But one thing that he posted the other day was like, your job doesn't suck. Your negative mindset sucks. Your lack of self love sucks.

Your excuses to not fix it suck. Stop sucking. Do something. And that is so true. Like, how dare you come to the table with a million and one complaints and you don't have not one solution.

Why is it that you hate your job? Why is it that you think that this person and that person and every other person is an asshole? Why is it that you supposed to leave at 05:30, but you packing up at 04:47 just because you feel like leaving? Sometimes that look in the mirror is everything because you have to get real with, well, what part of my plan in this toxic environment? What part of my plan in a job that sucks?

If all of this is wrong, what's the common denominator? What can I do to fix it? If somebody came to me and said let me think about something. I'm a go from the accounting standpoint. So somebody came to me and said, okay.

Our hours are too long during close. I work twelve hours a day for five days during close. Somebody came and said that to me. If somebody came and said that to me, my next question would be, okay, So what do you think we should do about it? And that's it.

Versus somebody who says, hey, Nicole. We've been clocking in, like, twelve hours a day during month end. I was thinking that maybe if we got a jump start on some stuff and worked on a, b, and c during pre close, then that would cut the time that we have to spend doing revenue analysis. Then by day two, we can jump on our expenses instead of waiting today for the jump on expenses. Somebody who came with a plan, somebody who shows me that this is more than just some emotional rant, that they have a vested interest in trying to make things better for the benefit of the department as a whole.

Then, okay, my ears are open. My mind is open. I'm open to hearing what you have to say because, yes, you came to me with a gripe or with a complaint, but you also came to me with a possible solution. Even if it's not the right one, at least you've given me something something to think about as opposed to this bullshit. I'm trying to leave that fab I mean, that is just like, okay.

Let me know when you're done. There is no reason I could think of that anybody should be going to appear to a manager or anybody complaining if you're not bringing a solution to the table. So that's the other reason why I try to encourage people to have one on one conversations with their managers. Because for one, that should be an informal setting where you can let your hair down, if you will, and talk about talk about what's really real, what's really going on. And the way I approach that is I used to, like, walk around the building with my team or and I've talked about this before on another episode where we worked in a building that was surrounded by just beautiful, lush gardens and a waterfall and just all this, like, zen zen type of things.

And instead of sitting in the conference room across the table, you know, I decided, let's go outside. Let's take a walk around the building. Okay. Tell me what's going on. Now that close is over, we got a little bit of downtime.

How how is everything with you? How's your job going? And then that will start the conversation like, well, you know, I think month end went well, but I struggle with this, this, and this. Okay. Yeah.

You did knock this out of the park, but I agree. You did struggle with blah blah blah. Tell me what was going on. Like, what what was your mindset? How did you come to that conclusion?

Let's talk through where you went wrong so we can make sure you don't do that again. Just trying to take a different approach because aside from being a leader running a department, I'm a person. And more than likely, I've been well, I have been. I've definitely been in the situations that my team members are in where they're staff accountants or they're senior accountants, and they're trying to figure out this whole corporate thing, how to move out here, how to duck and dodge the politics. And sometimes you just need to talk to somebody outside of your cubicle or your personal space, take the work off the table for a second, and just talk as two professionals, as a manager and an employee, as a leader and an employee.

Sometimes you have to get out of the office, walk around the building, go for lunch, do something different. Change the environment so that you can really start to establish a rapport and and develop some some meaningful relationships with with your team members because we're gonna be spending a lot of time together at work, especially that first week of the month or that last week of the month trying to get things done. Emotions can get the best of people. I used to work on a team where we had somebody that brought chocolate every month in clothes. We knew we were gonna run into some stumbling blocks, and that chocolate would be our saving grace.

Or there were times where you might be short or snappy with somebody because your your damn revenue ain't tying out or something ain't making sense, and you've been looking at it for three where, you know, you don't feel like being bothered because your revenue don't tie out, and you've been looking at it for three hours. And now somebody come and ask you something that's not even related to what you're doing. So, I mean, emotions can get can run high. There's a lot going on. You're working against tight deadlines.

But aside from that, people are people. People have lives. People have things to do. People have career goals that they're trying to achieve. And it's just so much easier when you have resources or when you have a manager or a mentor or a coach or somebody that you can talk to to just bounce different ideas off of.

And the other thing about that is that this is a mutually beneficial thing. And if you feel like you're doing a great job, but you're not sure what the manager thinks, then go and have a conversation. Hey. Can we chat for a few minutes? I'm just thinking about my career or however you wanna phrase it.

Can I get fifteen minutes or thirty minutes of your time to just talk about some things that I'd like to discuss with you? Most managers are happy to do that. Sure. Let's put some time on my calendar for whatever time. I mean, it's up to you to drive these conversations if they are not already happening.

A lot of times when I was having these conversations, it was more so a formality, and it was a part of the whole HR cycle of managing people and it was almost a requirement. Whereas in some cases, I've had to initiate these discussions and I guess I've had to initiate these discussions and manage my manager to say, hey, it's been three weeks since we last talked. I need to know what's going on. Especially in situations where things are moving really fast, where it's just a lot going on. And sometimes your managers have so much going on that they're trying to prioritize their life because like I said, being a manager of people or a leader of people is a lot of work.

It's like having two jobs. You have to manage the team, then you still have to manage your own stuff. So it's about prioritizing, but still making sure that you are there and available to your team to be that resource that they need. So the next time you go to work and you don't feel like being there or you feel like complaining or something that's just not working or you feel like I need to find another job because this environment is this, this and this, then take a step back and think about how you are contributing to that particular environment and take that a step further to say, what can I do to make this better? You never know what a conversation with your boss or even with your peers can do when everybody's on the same page or say, you know what, guys?

We agree. This this environment is not ideal. What do you think we can do? Or here's here's what we can do. So you never know what having those type of conversations can do and what change they can lead to.

But if you start the conversation off with just a dump of everything you don't like and everything that's wrong and just this emotionally charged type of angry approach, you're not gonna really get very far except them looking at you like, what is wrong with her? But definitely voice your opinions at work. And I think a lot of us are operating daily in toxic environments because we haven't said anything, because we're afraid of what our managers might say, or we're afraid that it might get back to a higher up that we've said something bad. It's really your obligation to say that. They might not even know that these things are going on.

They are working on their own priorities. They may be you might have executives who travel all the time or decision makers who are always running around to a meeting or doing something else, they they're not that close to the processes and to the the environment to even know what's going on. So you might be doing the whole team a favor by speaking up and voicing your opinions, but don't forget to compliment your opinions and your gripes and complaints with some possible solutions. You never know how that would turn out. If you all would like to have some conversations or maybe you're thinking about talking to your boss and you're not sure how to frame it, Let me know.

Shoot me an email. Hellonickwinston dot com. I would love to give you some pointers and just some talking points that you can use to facilitate those conversations. There's also a link to, the employee manager one zero one template. The link is in the show notes where you can download that and use that as a guide for having these type of conversations with your boss.

Hopefully, it's not a one time thing. It should definitely be an ongoing conversation. But if you have any career questions or just things in general you're trying to figure out when it comes to your career, what your next move is, or how to step into your next role, let me know. Hit me up on Instagram, Twitter. I'm nick winston c p a.

And as I said, you can always email me at hello@nickwinston.com.