Self-pity is essentially humorless, devoid of that
lightness of touch which gives understanding of life.
— Anthony Powell
The owner of a large Texas-based company saw fit today to blog about her "heartbreak" over furloughing her employees.
"Nobody wants to go in front of their employees and deliver bad news," she says. "But when the news to thousands of employees is that we were enacting a plan to save their jobs in the long term by furloughing them in the short term… well, nothing can quite prepare you for that."
She describes her discomfort at handing out several thousand pink slips; how she had to forgo her prepared speech and speak instead "from the heart;" and how she's truly madly deeply empathetic with her now-former employees.
"Empathy cannot be something you only do halfway," she says solemnly. "Empathy is the thing that helps you truly connect with the people around you, guiding you through the tough moments by reminding you that, in the end, we are all human."
I have no doubt, on the heels of her self-disclosure, the owner feels better.
After all, confession's good for the soul.
But how do her out-of-work employees feel? Are they consoled by her reminder that, "in the end, we are all human?" We are. But not a few of us are also facing the breadline.
Self-pity isn't only humorless—tiresome and banal—as the novelist Anthony Powell says; it's unbecoming, in the way Marie Antoinette's toilet (above) is unbecoming: you can dress it up, but you can't take it anywhere. "Sitting on the pity pot," as they say in AA, is equally unbecoming; blogging from there is worse.
Psychotherapist Joseph Burgo thinks sitting too long on the pity pot reveals an individual's sense of entitlement: the "inner brat," frustrated by adversity, believes she's helpless, a "victim of circumstance."
In a leader, self-pity is particularly unseemly. As Edward Segal, a crisis-management expert and the author of Crisis Ahead, told me, "Self-pity is not a good look for a leader. Singing 'Woe is me' only shows you cannot put yourself in the shoes of your furloughed employees."
You'll recall how frequently BP's CEO Tony Hayward sat on the pity pot when he was interviewed by reporters during the Gulf oil spill. It won him no friends.
And you're aware, thanks to the daily Coronavirus briefings, how the president seems permanently affixed to the pity pot when he's interviewed. It isn't pretty.
I've managed people in my time; I've had to lay some off; and it was indeed painful—but not nearly as painful for me as it was for them. Denied their livelihoods, my self-pity was a luxury they simply couldn't afford.
Self-pity is pointless when those around you are looking for a leader.
Like hope, self-pity is not a strategy.
