What does it take to STAND FOR RIGHT!


One of my friend called me this morning as I was driving to office. He seemed to be bit upset and narrated an incident that happened in his organisation.

There is this technical manager who is extremely rude and arrogant and it seems that the entire organisation experiences it. He insults people and it’s been a real nuisance. There have been escalations from employees, candidates who attend interview  with this man, few peers and from all possible angles. This morning too there has been another escalation and management is tight-lipped and are in mute condition. There have been many cases to support this typical behaviour but no action really surfaces out.

As we spoke, we also discussed on many facets of it

Why do some people behave rude?

What makes an individual arrogant? What pushes him to be insolent?

The probable answers we came out was-Ego, Over-confidence about oneself, feel so in-secured within and it makes them feel good to treat others like trash. They might have a problem with themselves or suffering from some disorder. For some it’s situational, but if it is a persistent habit, then there is something coarse underlying at a depth. The list grows with no end when we want to reason it out.

On the contrary, there is this set of people who digest and absorb this annoying and irksome behavior. In this typical case, management of the organisation isn’t taking any steps is one part of it. But there is also a good set of numbers who don’t raise voice against this infuriating behavior of the person. For instance, this HR Manager of this organisation seems to have no words. There are people who complain that management does nothing about it. And it seems that she also just follows the same line and keep mum about it. Rationally speaking, majority of us just follow the same lines…speak behind, give reasons not to take a bold step, no stand for what’s right, instead keep quiet. The complaint dies one day and we stay amidst of dead things. Yet another day another incident follows and we recall the past and still continue to complain that management does nothing about it.  Aren't we assuming!! Why don’t we think we are accountable too.  What stops us from approaching as a group to resolve age old grumbles? Why don’t we take responsibility to get things answered?  Have we put our efforts before we declare it! Have we attempted to voice over the opinion or we prefer to sit and complain about it until the problem knocks our door and hurts us as an individual.

Well, I was thinking as I drove to office and key aspects that
 struck my mind was – majority of us lack to carry an independent opinion and to stand for what we think is right. Probably, we need to have a strong personality to have an outlook of what is right and stand for it. Insecurity lies at every point of life at different thresholds, but the question is-do we control it, or does it control us.  This certainly does not mean that we should be eccentric in nature. All I am trying to say is “Let us be right”, and proliferate to people around to stand for what is right. Any decision we take should not be person oriented, situation oriented, individual emotion oriented, but should have an analytical reason and for what is right and veritable.

As I entered into my office, I have a table calendar with a quotation for each day. I came in and as a usual habit, I turned to today’s date and there was a subtle smile over my lips because the quote read – “All glory comes from daring to begin, so give it a start and prove yourself.”

Author : Pratima Jagadeesh

She is a HR Professional and works in a MNC at Bangalore. Her topics of interest are psychology and metaphysics. She is also involved with Counselling and works for few NGO's.