The People You Notice When You Don’t Need Anything
A Monday morning message, a week of missed conversations and a question about the difference between managing a career and leading people.
Working Across the Organisation · Managing Up · Managing Sideways · Humanity of Management
This article is inspired by real workplace and leadership experiences. I do not use real names, company names or identifying details. Roles, teams, organisational structures, projects and business context may be removed, generalised or combined to protect the people and organisations involved while preserving the underlying leadership reflection. Where conversations are referenced, wording may be edited for clarity and anonymity.
Recently, I spent several days working in the same room as someone I know professionally. We were sitting so close to each other that having a conversation would barely have required moving a chair.
And yet, we hardly spoke.
There were a few exchanges, mostly short ones. I tried starting conversations, but they never really went anywhere. A quick answer, a polite acknowledgement, and back to whatever was happening around us.
I didn't think much of it at the time. We were both there to work, after all. I don't expect every colleague to be interested in hearing about my weekend, and I certainly don't need to be everyone's favourite person in the room.
Then Monday morning arrived.
A message popped up. It started in the usual warm way: Hope you're well. Hope everything's good with the family.
And then came the line that made me stop.
Sorry we didn't get the chance to catch up properly last week.
Immediately afterwards came a request for something they needed me to do.
I read the message again, mainly because I was trying to decide whether I was being unreasonable.
But my first reaction was fairly simple: We did get the chance. Quite a few times, actually.
You sat across from me. We spent days in the same space. At any point, you could have asked whether I had five minutes. We could have had a conversation without a calendar invitation, a meeting room or the extraordinary organisational effort apparently required to move two chairs closer together.
What bothered me wasn't being asked to do something. Colleagues need things from each other. That's the job.
It was the way an opportunity that hadn't been taken was being described as an opportunity that hadn't existed.
I know that's a small distinction on paper. I also think small distinctions like that tell us something about how we experience one another at work.
There's a difference between not getting the chance and not making the time.
To be fair, there could have been any number of reasons why that conversation didn't happen. I don't know everything another person is dealing with, and I have no interest in turning one polite message into a character assessment.
But I do know how the week felt from my side. And I know that there seemed to be plenty of opportunity for conversation when certain other people were involved.
That was what stayed with me.
I've noticed this dynamic before. Some people can be remarkably attentive when the most senior person in the room is speaking. They make the effort, find the opening, ask the question, remember the conversation and make sure they're part of it.
Then the attention changes when they're dealing with someone who has less influence over their next opportunity.
I'm not against managing upwards. In fact, I think it's an important skill. You should understand what matters to senior colleagues, build relationships and make your work visible. Organisations don't run on good intentions alone.
But I struggle with the idea that being good at managing upwards somehow excuses being poor at managing relationships sideways, or treating the people around you as an afterthought.
There's a difference between being intentional about relationships and only investing in people when there's something to gain.
I think this becomes even more complicated when we talk about leadership, because organisations don't always reward the same things that make somebody a person others want to follow.
Someone can be excellent at delivering what their manager wants. They can be organised, responsive and commercially effective. They can keep moving upwards.
None of that automatically tells me how their own team experiences them.
Do people feel trusted to make decisions? Can they challenge an idea without first working out which answer their manager wants? Are they becoming more capable, or simply better at anticipating instructions?
Those are different questions from whether someone looks impressive in a room full of senior leaders.
And to me, they matter at least as much.
I've seen how easily a manager can become the centre of every decision and still be regarded as exceptionally dependable. The work gets done, the updates look good and the person at the top gets exactly what they asked for.
But if the team cannot think or act with confidence unless that manager is involved, I have to wonder what sort of leadership is being built underneath all that performance.
That's a bigger subject for another day. The Monday message just brought me back to a simpler point.
You don't have to like someone to treat them with genuine consideration.
We are not obliged to become friends with everyone we work with. Some personalities won't click. Some conversations will remain entirely professional. Sometimes you will work with people whose approach you fundamentally disagree with.
None of that prevents you from acknowledging them properly, listening when they speak or treating their time as valuable.
And you certainly don't need to wait until you have a request to show an interest in how they're doing.
I don't want people asking after my family because they think it increases the likelihood that I'll say yes to something. I'd much rather someone be straightforward with me than perform a warmth they don't otherwise show.
Equally, I don't want to become so cynical that I assume every friendly message hides an agenda. That would be unfair, and probably exhausting.
The challenge, I think, is consistency.
If the only time someone experiences your curiosity is just before you ask for a favour, eventually even a perfectly nice message starts to feel transactional.
If you regularly give people attention and respect without needing anything in return, the occasional request feels like part of a working relationship rather than the reason the relationship exists.
I keep thinking about the people I've respected most in my career. Not all of them had the biggest titles. Not all of them agreed with me. Some challenged me far more than was comfortable.
But I rarely had to wonder whether I mattered to them only when I was useful.
That's the part of leadership I want to keep getting better at myself. Remembering that the person sitting beside me may not be the most important person to my career, but they're still a person worth giving my attention to.
And remembering that a week of ordinary interactions can say much more about my leadership than one carefully worded message on a Monday morning.
Work is a business. Of course it is. People have deadlines, objectives, relationships to build and careers they want to progress.
But I don't think being good at business requires us to be selective about being decent to people.
In fact, I suspect the people who manage to do both are the ones whose influence lasts longer than their job title.
Maybe that's the question worth asking yourself the next time you walk into a room.
Who do you make time for when you don't need anything?
