Dear ExxonMobil Supervisors and Middle Managers,
While you may truly believe you’re different and that your intentions are to motivate and support your teams and your actions reflect that, I urge you to pause and reconsider. Chances are, you’re not as unique or effective as you think. This message is for you, and the further up the chain you are, the more likely it is that you may be part of the problem.
Let’s start with the fact that many of you have enjoyed relatively blessed careers. It’s not to say that some of you weren’t hard workers in your early roles, but our ranking system has a singular focus: to identify and groom the next generation of senior leaders. As future leaders, you were selected early for prime assignments and ranked favorably in a positive feedback loop, which further solidified your status. The traits that put you on this path are often based more on personality similarities to existing leaders than on objective measures of effective leadership. It’s essential to recognize that your experience navigating the assessment process is vastly different from that of those you manage—often without justifiable reason. Luck played a significant role, and you’ve benefited immensely. Consequently, in the best case, you might simply not grasp the impact our ranking system has on your teams. In the worst case, this can lead to a misguided belief that you earned your position solely through merit, resulting in disdain for those “below” you. This mindset not only lacks empathy but also actively contributes to the challenges your teams face.
Now, let’s address micromanagement. If your calendar is overflowing with meetings because you feel the need to be “involved” in everything your team does, this part is for you. Your job isn’t to do their work; your position doesn’t magically bestow you with technical prowess. Real expertise comes from years of hands-on experience, not just a title. When you second-guess every decision your team makes and insert yourself into every meeting for “awareness” or “alignment,” you’re undermining their autonomy and proving that you don’t trust them. This only breeds churn and frustration. Trust your people, step back, and focus on removing the barriers they face. Want to know what those barriers are? Ask them, or simply wait for them to come to you. You don’t need to dig around to uncover them—that’s the essence of micromanagement, and it’s incredibly demotivating.
Let’s discuss motivation. There are countless ways to inspire your team—trust, respect, and meaningful work are just a few. One of your key responsibilities is to learn what matters most to each of your team members. However, at the end of the day, work is a straightforward exchange: time and expertise for money and benefits. So when employees endure years of raises that don’t keep pace with inflation—or worse, no raise at all—it’s hard not to feel resentful. Pizza, Fro-yo, and happy hours simply don’t cut it. In fact, when you consider the real decrease in our salaries, those gestures come off as downright insulting. Keep this in mind when forming employee morale committees, whose best solution often seems to be “let’s just offer free food.” You aren’t selling time-shares. Focus on finding ways to reward people with material compensation to reward their hard work.
And let’s be clear: getting “time” with senior management as a reward isn’t exactly a morale booster. Whether it’s a chance to present your project or mingle at a social event, most of us see senior leaders as parasitic sociopaths who thrive at the expense of everyone else. It’s poor decision-making at the top that’s steering ExxonMobil toward becoming the next GE. Just look at leaders like DW, who seem to possess the opposite of the Midas touch—everything they touch turns to excr-ment, for example the Adhesions business. The only folks eager for more time with these corporate cronies are those desperately trying to claw, cheat, and backstab their way to the top of this leadership circus.
Instead of simply delegating these interactions to their teams, managers should shoulder this burden themselves, standing in the line of fire while giving credit where it’s due. They need to be the relentless defenders of their teams, fighting for recognition and resources, ensuring that the hard work and contributions of their employees don’t get lost in the corporate shuffle.
This brings me to the issue of managing up. To the managers who prioritize this behavior at the expense of managing your teams: it may benefit you personally, but it is disastrous for your teams and the organization’s ultimate success. You are paid to advocate for new, promising ideas your team creates and to challenge misguided directives from above. Even if it puts you at risk, you should at least bury the requests from senior leaders that don’t add value. Simply parroting everything you hear isn’t adding any real value. Moreover, the people you manage are not children. When something disingenuous comes down from senior management—like claims that “PIPs are to motivate and improve our workforce”—they see right through it. Don’t mindlessly repeat it; acknowledge when something doesn’t make sense, or you’ll lose the respect of your team.
On a related note, I’ve often been told by management to simply “recycle” words or whole slides from a vice president in my presentations because that would be “most effective.” If that’s truly how you think we should be spending our time, then you, sir or madame, are utterly useless, and those you advise certainly know it.
In the context of the often—and justifiably—maligned ranking system, employees are demotivated by an assessment and development framework that sacrifices its effectiveness by prioritizing the search for Darren's successor over encouraging and rewarding behaviors that truly generate value. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t even do that very well. HR professionals in most modern companies, along with academics studying management, have almost universally condemned the rank-and-yank systems popularized by Jack Welch as a relic of a bygone era that ended disastrously. So let’s not defend this system with platitudes like, “Every system has flaws, and this is the best of an imperfect lot.” Instead, let’s call a spade a spade and admit we’re using an archaic system that results in net losses and only looks good to a minority of biased decision-makers.
Now, a few additional watch-outs for you all:
To the managers who can’t make decisions without complete information, sending your teams on endless missions to build the perfect case: remember Cicero’s words: “More is lost by indecision than by wrong decision.” This is an integral part of your job: manage the risk of decisions made without the luxury of full information.
And to the travel-obsessed manager fixated on your next business trip: stop wasting time planning your next jaunt to Paris or Buenos Aires while telling your team to tighten their belts and skip the three-hour drive to meet a customer in Louisiana because of “budget cuts.” Your hypocrisy is palpable.
I write this in the hope that even just one of you will take a moment to reflect on the behaviors contributing to this toxic leadership wasteland. You might not be able to change corporate policies overnight, but there is still a fair bit within your control. Recognize that you can truly make a difference for those in your command and improve their day-to-day experience. Treat people with genuine respect. Trust and defend those who work for you. Sure, you might need to grow a spine to do this, and that won’t happen overnight. But start working for your people; that is what a good manager does. Anything else is just dead weight.