Avatar and HR Pt 3: Career Ending Choices

Career Ending Choices

Sometimes even when you love your job, you have to make a decision between doing what you have been asked to do, and doing the right thing.

Going back to the Avatar movie, there one character who is a fighter pilot, she’s a rock hard chick who is VERY good at what she does. Most people, at some point in their lives, have encountered a moment where you do/say/agree with things because you will be perceived as weak for not doing so. And at that moment, or perhaps later, you regret the decision to cave to the pressure.

This pilot character, after participating in a brutal bombing of the native inhabitants of the planet, changes her mind about which side of this war she’s on. She knows this military maneuver wasn’t the right thing to do. She abandons the corporate militia to assist the Na’vi in their battle. She makes a career ending decision because it is exactly the right thing to do.

Over the years I’ve worked in environments where bullying and peer pressure were not uncommon leadership strategies. One of the things I learned along the way is that it is never right to go along with something your gut tells you is wrong. If a management decision requires those types of tactics to get everyone “on the same page” – something is fishy.

It might end a job, or even a career – but I’d much rather be able to look myself in the mirror in the morning, than hide behind the excuse that someone “made me” violate my principles, because frankly, no one can make me do anything of the sort.

Its a choice.
So toss the excuse in the junkyard.
And just do the right thing.