The Hidden Job Description No One Admits To
Most job specs list strategy, delivery, impact. Few mention the unspoken line item: managing your manager’s emotions. Yet in too many organisations, particularly those that trade on values, this hidden task swallows the real work.
You know the drill.
Keep the leader calm. Translate their volatility into something the team can survive. Pretend stability so the machine keeps moving. This is not leadership. It is unpaid emotional labour. And it corrodes everything it touches.
I once held a role meant to shape strategy. In practice, I became a buffer - absorbing chaos so others could function. When I turned to the board for accountability, silence. Trustees nodded through reports but looked away from behaviour. Governance became a checkbox, not a safeguard.
This is how dysfunction becomes normalised. Ego runs the room. Absence passes for oversight. Staff build workarounds instead of impact. The mission weakens while everyone smiles politely.
And here’s the truth: resilience is not measured by how much dysfunction you can swallow. Silence is not maturity. Coping is not commitment.
Across sectors - from healthcare to tech - the same story repeats. Emotional labour falls hardest on those least powerful, most empathetic, and often already carrying other inequities. That is not a coincidence. It is a design flaw.
So what changes?
Leadership: Emotional regulation treated as a core competency, not a personal quirk.
Boards: Active scrutiny of culture, not just delivery metrics.
Organisations: Real consequences when emotional harm occurs.
We stop plastering over dysfunction with resilience webinars. We stop mistaking coping for commitment. We build emotional safety into governance, not into individual stamina.
Because if people cannot speak the truth safely, the work is unsafe too.
You weren’t hired to manage chaos. You were hired to lead, to create, to change things. Remember that next time silence feels like the safer option. Dignity is not extra. It is the baseline.