I was mentally logging all of the misdeeds that I was suffering, rehearsing them in my mind to make sure I could communicate clearly why he should change.
Most of us know what it feels like to work with a leader who seems to make things harder instead of easier. Maybe they micro-manage, go silent when you need help, then swoop back in demanding progress and questioning your choices. Over time, it is easy to start rehearsing their missteps and building a careful case for why they are the problem.
In this episode of the Humanizing Work Show, Peter shares a recent experience on a community project where his frustration with a leader reached a boiling point. He seriously considered escalating, trying to get the leader removed, or having a hard confrontation once the project wrapped up. Instead, during a moment of prayer and meditation, a very different idea surfaced: invite the leader to lunch and get curious about who he is and what matters to him.
What happened next changed Peter’s sense of the situation. The long list of grievances he had been rehearsing melted away, replaced by a small but real connection with another human being doing his best, imperfectly, like all of us. The project outcome was still important, but the path there looked very different once the anger loosened its grip.
This story is not about tolerating harm or ignoring abuse. It is about the more common situations where the damage is mostly happening in our own thoughts, our own sense of fairness, and our desire for control. It is about using whatever spiritual or mindfulness practice you rely on to notice the story you are telling, and then taking a small step toward service and connection instead of doubling down on being right.
In this episode, Peter explores:
- How rumination and venting can entrench a one-sided story about a leader
- Why the obvious options—escalation, confrontation, or quitting—are not always the most effective first move
- How spiritual and mindfulness practices can open up surprising, more helpful actions
- The difference between situations where you need to get safe and situations where your ego and expectations are what hurt most
- A simple, human way to shift from “I’m right, he’s wrong, and he should change” to “We’re imperfect people on the same team trying to create outcomes that matter”
If you are carrying frustration with a boss, executive, volunteer leader, or partner, this episode invites you to try a small, almost shocking move toward connection and see what changes.
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Episode Transcript
Peter Green: Welcome to the Humanizing Work Show. I’m Peter Green.
Last month I was just simmering with frustration. I was working with a leader on a community project, something I enjoy doing and have done successfully many times in the past. But this time, with this leader, I felt micromanaged, talked over, like my ideas and feedback were largely ignored.
At the same time, this leader would frequently give me incorrect details. He would go silent for days at a time when I’d ask for help, and then he’d jump back in demanding to see progress, often asking why I hadn’t done certain things he had never actually asked me to do. Things that, as far as I could tell, didn’t have any real impact on the outcome of the project.
I’m not going to go into all of the details for two reasons. First, I don’t want anyone trying to guess who this leader is. More importantly, the details don’t really matter, because I’m sure every one of us has felt this kind of frustration with a boss, an executive, or maybe a teammate before.
At the peak of my frustration, I was ready to go over this leader’s head, try to get him reprimanded or removed from the project. If none of that worked, I was even considering leaving the organization. At a minimum, once the project was completed, I was preparing to have a very frank conversation about how he was showing up in his role.
I was mentally logging all of the misdeeds that I was suffering, rehearsing them in my mind to make sure I could communicate clearly what he was doing wrong and make the case that he should change.
With a few weeks to go before the project was complete, I was at a boiling point. And then I had an experience that completely changed my perspective on these kinds of situations.
I’m usually a pretty even-keeled person. I don’t get rattled very easily, and I didn’t like that feeling of constant simmering frustration and anger. I’d already shared all of the options I’d considered, but none of those seemed likely to produce good results, at least in the short term, and maybe not in the long term either.
And so I turned to my most frequent spiritual practice, which for me is meditation and prayer. You might have different modalities to get centered and clear, but that’s what has worked well for me historically. As I prayed about this situation and meditated on my options, a very clear idea popped into my head: invite the leader out to lunch.
Despite that feeling a bit like giving up or giving in, I’ve learned to trust those ideas when I’m in that state. And so I did. I invited the leader to lunch.
He was very appreciative. We sat down for a good meal, and I asked about his family, a bit about his life history. I shared some of mine. By the end of the meal, an interesting thing happened. I couldn’t remember the details of why I was so frustrated.
These are details I had rehearsed. They were crystal clear to me just an hour or two before the lunch. But when I tried to share the experience later that evening with my wife, I could no longer remember all of the misdeeds and terrible acts I had been ready to document and prosecute.
All the details had melted away, and I was left with a small, budding connection with another human who was trying to do his best, doing it imperfectly like all of us. Doing it differently from how I would do it or how I would coach a client to do it. But once the anger was gone, I could focus on the outcome, and that turned out really well for this project.
At my age, I often think I’ve probably mostly figured things out about how the world works, how to show up, who I am, and what I’m capable of. Like all of you, I’ve learned lots of big lessons, many of which I’ve shared here, and it can feel like I mostly am who I am.
So it’s been a little bit humbling, but also kind of exciting and energizing, to have an experience like this. It’s taught me that I’m not done. I’m still chipping away at things, and every once in a while, if I stay at it, I’m going to find a nice new chunky corner of myself to refine.
The experience also reminded me that the things that matter are not so much the right process, or the right technique, or the most effective leadership approach. Those things are important, but I was reminded that what matters most is human connection.
As hokey or trite as that sounds, once I focused on human connection, everything else fell into place. All of my uncomfortable emotions vanished like fog in warm sunlight.
All of the ruminating and venting I had done was just reinforcing a story in my head that I’m right, he’s wrong, and he should change. I was gearing up to use all of my credentials, my influence, my negotiating skills, every tool I could bring to bear to try to make him change. It felt like a heavy lift, but one that, in this narrative, would be heroic for everyone else he came into contact with in the future.
As it turns out, the real heroic act was letting go of my own ego, putting aside my made-up stories about who he is, who I am, what his intent and capability are, and getting curious enough to learn who this person really was and what he cared about. What motivated him, what his goals were, what mattered in his life.
And then a new question started to emerge: how can I be of service to those goals? That led me to want to stay connected to him rather than avoid him. It no longer felt like I’m on one side and he’s on the other, and I’m building my case to go to war. It felt like we were on the same team—imperfect people doing our best to create outcomes that matter.
If you’re frustrated with someone—a boss, a coworker, a peer in a community group, or a partner—and you find yourself ruminating on their misdeeds or venting to a trusted friend about their weaknesses, beware that you might be entrenching a story that at best is only partially true.
For me, it took my spiritual practice of prayer and meditation to realize that my planned approach wouldn’t serve me, it wouldn’t serve him, and it wouldn’t serve the project. Instead, I needed to take a simple act of service and connection.
In my head, that idea of extending that invitation felt shocking at the time. It was the opposite of the direction I was headed. And I’m so grateful I chose to do it.
Whatever your spiritual or mindfulness practice is, use it to consider how you can develop a connection with the one you’re frustrated with. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have clear boundaries if someone is harming you—that’s a different category where you need to get safe.
I’m talking about the hundreds of other interactions where we may feel frustrated, undervalued, or overlooked, where the only real damage is happening to our ego, our sense of fairness, or our desire for autonomy. A leader in my wisdom tradition has said, “Our happiness has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.”
This is my invitation to you: do something shocking. Let the anger go, reach out, commit a small act of service, create real human connection, and see if the anger doesn’t melt a bit. See if you don’t have new ideas for how to move forward.
With the level of division in our world today, it’s much needed. If you choose to do it, thank you for doing your part to help heal that division, one small act of kindness at a time.
Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time on the Humanizing Work Show.
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