Grappling with the Gray #65: Finding favor in my eyes?

Can you be right and still be wrong?

That's the question I'll be discussing with my very special guest Cy Wakeman on this week's episode of Grappling with the Gray.

Here is our topic for today.

Real estate mogul Tim Gurner, one of Australia’s richest men, made headlines when he remarked that employees should stop feeling like they’re doing their boss a favor and consider themselves lucky to have a job. He later retracted his comments and apologized.

How are we to evaluate attitudes among both bosses and employees? On the one hand, employers complain about quiet quitting, a sense of entitlement, and a loss of work ethic among their employees. On the other hand, employees complain about a lack of respect from bosses, unreasonable demands and expectations, and an astonishingly high CEO-to-worker pay ratio.

Ethics clearly dictates that employees should put in honest effort to earn an honest wage, and that bosses should treat their employees with respect, set reasonable expectations, and not exploit their power by giving themselves stratospheric salaries and bonuses while worker salaries remain flat. Common sense would indicate that treating employees fairly and with dignity would earn loyalty and commitment, thereby driving greater productivity and employee satisfaction.

Was there any truth in Tim Gurner’s comments? If so, where did he go wrong? And in general, why are so many workplaces so toxic, and what can be done to detoxify them?

Cy Wakeman is a drama researcher, international leadership speaker, consultant, and founder of Reality-Based Leadership. She is the author of four books, including the NY Times Bestseller, The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: Know What Boosts Your Value, Kills Your Chances, and Will Make You Happier and, most recently, Life’s Messy, Live Happy. Described as “the secret weapon to restoring sanity to the workplace,” Cy was voted in the top 100 leadership professionals to follow on twitter for 7 years in a row. For the last three years, she has ranked #1 among the Global Gurus list of Top 30 Leadership Professionals across the globe. Cy, I heard you speak at the National Speakers Association Conference in 2022 and immediately reached out, and I’m thrilled that we finally made it work.

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