Book. This is the story of a disillusion. Freshly graduated, Arthur Brault-Moreau began his professional career in the team of an elected leftist. The enthusiasm to work for his ” camp “ will quickly give way to disappointment. He accumulates more than fifty hours of work per week, the psychological pressure is there, the tensions too, when he makes demands on working conditions. ” Reality (…) was very far from the values defended by my employer”, he explains. He will eventually leave his organization.
After this experience, Mr. Brault-Moreau led a reflection on the structures of “left” – an arbitrary term, but assumed by the author – and their leaders, the impact they can have on employees. He made a book out of it, The Left Boss Syndrome (Out of Reach, 2022). A committed essay, impregnated by a traumatic experience, where suffering, tears and burnout are scattered over the pages. He is looking for explanations, after having made an observation that has stunned him: in responsibility, women and men deny their own values and adopt behaviors that they are supposed to fight.
The book is not intended to describe the management policies of left-wing leaders in all their diversity. The essay is more of a “collection of employee experiences” : through around fifty testimonials, Mr. Brault-Moreau tried to identify similarities, specificities that would distinguish this same management from that which could have been carried out by another more traditional manager. A quest for the flaws that a left-wing leader can carry within him when confronted with the exercise of power.
The most obvious is certainly the difficulty in assuming a supervisory role (giving orders, accepting a relationship of subordination, etc.), which can be experienced as unnatural. This sometimes results in an amateurism in the support of employees, a “self-management veneer”a facade of camaraderie, a vagueness in the missions and the hierarchy, the expectation of a boundless commitment and, ultimately, a “avoidance management”.
“An even more intense conflict of values”
A situation that can be painfully experienced by employees, who are considered more as activists. Managers are lacking to find their bearings in the organization. In this context, employee commitment sometimes turns against them. They must be “dedicated to the cause” and may have a bad conscience to reassert their rights. Isn’t opposing the militant structure to which one belongs the beginning of a betrayal? Some bosses do not hesitate to imply it. Similarly, the porosity of the boundaries between activism, volunteering and wage labor can sow confusion as to the missions to be accomplished and the time to devote to them.
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