Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
Being represented also carries a feeling of belonging.
For some people it comes from a teacher who defended the class when others criticised it, or a first manager who took the blame at a meeting and said nothing about it afterwards.
Underneath, a rule can sit: “A good boss shields the team,” or “If we're valued, they'll say no for us.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Take the extra work and keep the grumble inside
- Share a quiet glance with a teammate
- Stay late to protect the team's reputation
- Rehearse in your head what someone should have said
- Count how many requests the team has said yes to
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
The deadline moved two weeks earlier
Another deadline lands on your team in Singapore, two weeks earlier than planned, with the same number of people. Your manager announces it in the morning call and says, 'I know, I know, but it's come from above.' Nobody pushed back. The team goes quiet. You stare at your list, already planning the late nights, and feel a heavy kind of disappointment settle on you.
A good boss shields the team
Underneath sits a rule: 'A good boss stands up for their team.' It sounds right. Leaders should protect the people below them. But look at what it does: it ties your sense of safety at work to how one person handles pressure from above. Whether you feel looked after now depends on battles you never see, fought or not fought in rooms you never enter.
Why we want someone between us
We hold it because we want someone to stand between us and the storm. Maybe an older sibling or a parent once took the heat for you, and you felt safe. Maybe nobody ever did, and you hoped work would be different. Either way, wanting a manager who protects the team isn't naive. It comes from wanting fairness. That deserves kindness, not blame.
The trust that stops
Every unprotected deadline costs more than the extra hours. You stop trusting the morning calls. You brace yourself for the next demand from above. You grumble with colleagues at lunch, then go home tired and irritable. Slowly the team starts to feel like a group of people waiting to be overloaded, and the work you used to enjoy feels like something done to you.
Is waiting for a shield worth it?
Ask yourself honestly: has waiting for them to push back ever lightened the load? Or has it mostly made each new demand feel like a betrayal? Your manager may have pushed back in rooms you never saw, or may have less power than it seems. Either way, their silence in one call isn't the measure of your team's worth. Holding this rule so tightly costs you more than it gives you.
Looking after your own pace
Letting go doesn't mean you stop caring about fairness for your team. It means your own steadiness no longer depends on someone else's battles. You can look after your own pace, notice what is in your hands, and support the people beside you in small ways. That's where some peace comes back: you can feel like part of a team, even under pressure.
Threats, shouting, harassment, humiliation, being singled out for who you are, pay or papers held back, or being frightened at work, are something else, and worth taking seriously; staying careful can be the safe choice.
The flip
The old rule, and a new one to try #
The old ruleA good boss stands up for their team.
A new rule to tryI can look after my own pace, whatever comes from above.
Three small days
Try it for 3 days #
- Day 1
On a pressured day, name one thing that is in your hands
- Day 2
Take a proper lunch break once this week, away from the desk
- Day 3
Notice one small kindness inside the team today
Want to talk it through?
“When did someone stand up for a group you were part of, and how did it feel?”
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Everything this deck knows
Go deeper #
What it sounds like, where it comes from, what it costs, and other ways to see it. Every question opens a chat on it.
How it lands
What was said
The extra work from another team #
A request lands from another department, with a deadline attached and an easy yes from your boss in the thread. By the time the team hears about it, the answer has already been given. The sentence arrives: “My boss should stand up for our team.”
For some people the wish is less about a battle and more about a sense that someone is watching the team's edges. A group tends to work more calmly when it knows somebody keeps the whole picture in view.
When did a manager last speak up for your team in a way you noticed, and what did they say?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
The sinking after the yes #
Some people notice a sinking sensation as a new piece of work is accepted on the team's behalf. Others feel a small tightening across the chest while their eyes move to the faces around the table.
The body can respond before any thought forms: a held breath, a lowered gaze, a quick calculation of the week ahead. The weighing of what is fair tends to follow, often in a quiet corner of the afternoon.
The last time more work arrived on the team's plate, what did you feel first, before you decided what it meant?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
Wanting someone at the edge of the group #
Hoping a manager will stand up for the team makes sense. A team has limited hours and a limited shape, and a person in the middle is the one who can say where it ends.
Being represented also carries a feeling of belonging. Some people find that a manager who speaks up outwards makes the inside of the team feel steadier, with each member knowing their work is seen.
What would standing up for your team look like to you, in one ordinary moment at work this week?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
The voice that tallies the yeses #
“Nobody asked us first.” “That's the third one this month.” “Who is looking out for this group?” The voice tends to speak when the team chat goes quiet and the new task is already in the shared folder.
Some people notice the voice speaks for the whole team more than for itself. It is protective of colleagues, and also quietly tired on their behalf.
When the voice tallies the yeses, which line does it repeat, and who is it speaking up for?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
Where the picture of a protector comes from #
For some people it comes from a teacher who defended the class when others criticised it, or a first manager who took the blame at a meeting and said nothing about it afterwards. That kind of cover leaves a vivid memory.
For others it comes from home, a parent who stood between the family and the rest of the world. In some households, protecting the group was the first job of whoever was in charge.
Who first stood up for a group you belonged to, and how did that feel from inside the group?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
The rule about having a protector #
Underneath, a rule can sit: “A good boss shields the team,” or “If we're valued, they'll say no for us.” The first sentence is the one people hear; the rule underneath turns each accepted request into a sign of how the team is regarded.
Rules like this come from caring about colleagues, which is worth respecting. They can be looked at beside real managers, who sit between teams, priorities and people higher up, with their own pressures.
It might trace back to earlier years, or it may have grown along the way.
Where does “my boss shields us” hold today, and where does it ask for something a single person cannot always manage?Talk about this ›
What it costs
What it costs
What feeling exposed can cost #
It can mean a team meeting where nobody quite looks up, a week begun with a mild unease about what has been accepted overnight, and a habit of scanning messages for the next addition.
Over a year, some people notice the team's good humour thinning out. The shared jokes get fewer, the lunch breaks shorter, and a sense of looking after one another gives way to a sense of getting through.
Over the last year, which moment with your team felt the most like a team, and what had brought it about?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
Years of the easy yes #
Look at one ordinary Tuesday on which “my boss should stand up for our team” is loud. What is in it: the thread, the new deadline, the glances across the desks, a plan for the week quietly rearranged? A scene only to look at.
Perhaps another team's request has been accepted, the work is shared out, someone brings tea round, a colleague mutters kindly, and the afternoon moves on.
Nothing here needs an answer, and the picture can be put aside whenever you like. What, if anything, do you notice about it?
What else is in that day?Talk about this ›
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
Standing up has more than one shape #
A manager can stand up for a team loudly, or quietly: by shaping what gets asked, by sequencing work, by absorbing a request before it reaches anyone. Much of it may never be visible from the floor.
A yes in the thread can also mean a trade made elsewhere, or a pressure that never arrived. It is hard to tell from the outside, and the team's picture of what was said is rarely the full one.
If one thing about how work reaches your team could change, what would you want it to be, and why?Talk about this ›
What is already there
What the team already holds #
Beside the requests that arrived without warning, there is what the team gives itself: a colleague who covers a call, a joke that lands at the right time, a message of “need a hand with that?” on a tight afternoon.
Noticing these does not cancel the wish for a manager who speaks up. Both can stand together, and the noticing asks nothing back from anybody.
Who on your team has stood up for you, in a big or small way, and what would you like to remember about it?Talk about this ›
Making peace
A team that holds itself, and is held #
Peace with this hope can mean a new request stops setting the mood of the team for a week. What is fair can stay: wanting the team valued, wanting its edges watched. What can ease is the grip, so a yes in a thread is one decision among many, and the team's own warmth counts too.
Harassment, threats and humiliation from your boss or anyone else at work are something else, and worth taking seriously, as is being singled out for who you are (gender, caste, religion, colour, age, a disability or where you come from).
Unpaid work demanded, pay or papers held back, unsafe work or being frightened belong in the same place. Going along or staying careful can be the safe choice.
Basic respect and safety at work are never “expecting too much”, for you and for them.
Picture a week with this hope held lightly: what does your team do for one another, and what is the best part?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A truer line for the extra request #
Beside “My boss should stand up for our team”, some people keep a line like this ready: “I'd like us to be backed, and we also look after one another.” It does not have to beat the old line, only stand next to it.
A sentence like that can sound sweet at first and more real with use. Others find a sharper wording of their own, and that is fine too.
What would a truer sentence be in your own words, honest about wanting the team backed without letting that be the only measure?Talk about this ›
What to let be
A new request can wait for the morning #
Not every addition to the plate needs a ruling tonight. It can be noticed, felt for a moment, and left in the shared folder like a file closed for the evening.
The wish to be stood up for can stay private for as long as you like. If you are singled out for who you are, made to work unpaid, or frightened by anyone at work, that is something else, and worth taking seriously.
Setting it down for tonight does not mean it was fine, or that it is settled. It only means the evening does not have to be a meeting.
If it loosened
And if the wish sat lighter #
Consider, as a picture only, the expectation a notch softer. The wish to be backed is still there, and the new task can be taken on with the team's own warmth around it. What is the first thing that feels different?
Perhaps you take it on, and notice what it asked of the week, keeping that as a private observation. Or you notice something the team did well together that day.
All of this can stay between you and the page. Whatever comes up is yours. Next: what making peace with this hope can mean, and what is already there.
What would you notice?Talk about this ›
Small things to try
Something to try
A few small things to try, if they appeal #
- Name the wish for backing in one word, then go on
- Notice one thing a teammate did for another today
- Picture the best week your team has ever had
- Think of a moment when the team felt solid
- Notice what you add to the team that is not on any list
Small, private and optional. Try whichever feels doable.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
Tap one. A chat with Dr. Thoughts opens on that question: free, private, no sign-up to start.
- When did someone stand up for a group you were part of, and how did it feel?
- What is the best team you have worked in, and what made it so?
- Which colleague has made a hard week easier, and what did they do?
- If the wish for your boss to back the team eased a little, what might you notice first?
- What does your team already do for one another that you would like to notice more?