The meeting room is boring. Just nothing. Outside, the day is grey and frozen in early February. Inside, the heating burns. I am getting nervous. Hot. He’s five minutes late.
My phone vibrates. Maria, Stefan’s secretary, texts me. Where are you?
I look around the meeting room. The meeting invitation confirms it. In the meeting room?
Three dots. Stefan always receives people in his office.
Of course. I am eight minutes late when I finally get there. Two floors up and two corridors down. Maria’s waiting outside, already shaking her head.
“Why were you in the meeting room?” she asks. It sounds rhetorical. She points towards the open door.
Stefan looks up from his screen, notices me and his whole face changes. His frown disappears, replaced by his signature smile. He comes around his standing desk and welcomes me. Open and warm.
“Jonas! So good to see you. How was your parental leave?”
“It wasn’t. Just normal holidays.” I almost answer. But why would I correct him.
Instead, I tell him about Oman and its amazing people. Our kids seeing something completely different. He loves that we went there while they were only two and three. Next week, he tells me, he’s taking his son to India on a business trip. He graduated from school a few weeks back. Work first for Stefan, then time together. To show him the country.
Stefan is a man possessed. I’ve seen him understand technical problems frighteningly fast. Complicated systems with way too many dependencies and responsibilities. He’ll go very deep. And come back out first.
To me, he’s also very warm. Interested. Easy to talk to. I should like him, I think. He has fired dozens of people over the course of last year. I’ve heard stories about him shouting at employees. People getting on his bad side in the very first meeting. He told me as much himself. About my own boss. Me though, I’m clearly in the other category, the good graces club.
He’s got a fancy windowed corner office with a small, boring table in the middle of it. We sit down across. He drops the sugar. He tells me I’m such a strong manager. People trust me, my employees praise me. I get difficult things done. I’m someone to rely on. Exactly what he needs. He hardly knows me personally. I’ll still take it. Why fight compliments. Genuine or not. Let’s be honest, I am also not telling him that I don’t trust him. I’m here because I want something from him. A career jump, maybe. And more money. Can I make use of his power for my own purposes? I don’t have to be his friend for that.
He just keeps going. The whole company is changing, especially software. We have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to shape a whole industry. He’s good at this. Not just slick. Practiced. He’s convinced of himself. It’s effective. And it works. I enjoy his praise.
“I really want you in my team,” he says.
A leader several levels above me, sitting across from me, responsible for hundreds of people, telling me he wants me. I feel important. Seen, valued, all that stuff. He keeps selling. Responsibility. Difficult problems. Taking ownership. He wants people who don’t wait to be told what to do. People like me. I know what happens when Stefan doesn’t want someone. I am suspicious. But the way to get what I want is open.
Eventually I interrupt. “Alright. Which topics or teams are we talking about?”
He looks at me. As he already said, there are so many possibilities. I know the organization myself. I should go and talk to people. Look around. See where I can make the biggest difference.
“Anything specific you had in mind?”
“No. Not yet.”
Whatever I find, whatever I arrange, whatever role I build around it, he will support me. Complete freedom. No boundaries. Isn’t that generous? I should leave his office ecstatic. I’m not sure. Stefan shakes my hand. Still the same warmth. Same smile.
“Go find something exciting.”
“I will.”
“I’ve got your back.”
“Thanks.”
“And let’s stay close and talk again soon.”
“Sure.”
I leave his office. I look around. I talk to different people. I find exactly what Stefan said was out there. A senior manager puts an amazing offer on the table. Building a new global team from scratch around one of the company’s most important new products. Stefan told him I might come looking. The only thing left is my signature.
Three weeks later, I resign. Not only because of Stefan. There were also other decisions and arguments. People I no longer trust. I tell myself I am leaving because honesty matters more to me than my career. Being genuine. All the noble stuff.
But I had also just sat across from Stefan, smiled, took his praise and never told him what I really thought of him or the culture he built around himself. I played nice too. Silent dishonesty. My own little performance.
Stefan, who wanted me close and in his team, never texted me again. Never talked to me. Weeks passed. Silence.
The curtain falls. I clap.
There’s something interesting about how good it can feel to be chosen, even by someone we’re not sure we trust. Maybe being seen and being valued can feel very similar in the moment.