I’ve found the mirroring thing also helps to make sure you don’t empathize with the wrong things, because that’s a sure sign that you’re faking it.
So when I get to Valhalla, I ask Charles to tell me the story in his own words. It gives me a chance to figure out where to put the empathy regarding the nun situation. Charles is critical to the brothel operation, and I really need to keep him on board.
We’re in his little office at the front of Valhalla, the small apartment complex positioned on the corner where a residential area gives way to a low-rent shopping and dining district. Dollar stores, that sort of thing. Charles is shaking with rage over the guard taking the nun.
So I do rage, too. I plan to kill the guard either way, but I’m angling to make it all about Charles. I set my face in a frown and show him my balled fists. Valerie says physical cues are 80% of your message. Who knew?
“That man needs to hurt,” I say.
Charles nods, slowly.
The man is fixated on his nuns. He takes women to his home, dresses them in nun’s outfits he’s had specially made, and two weeks later they’re hacked up and he needs another, because that last one wasn’t quite right.
What the fuck are you supposed to do with that? I would defy even Valerie to feel empathy for this particular frustration.
But I need him running Valhalla. He was doing it under the old boss, Aldo Nikolla. Aldo himself would often say how fucking valuable Charles was. If I lose Charles’s loyalty, I’ll have to kill him, and there will be no one to run Valhalla. That would be a hell of a hit on the bottom line.
I know they don’t see me as leader material. They see me more as an untrustworthy psycho who’ll go bananas at the drop of a hat. That was part of Aldo Nikolla’s PR, though I’ll admit to doing my part to stoke it.
A kumar needs to instill fear. It’s in the job description.
Aldo Nikolla made me heir apparent as a kind of insurance policy, knowing none of the ambitious kryetar would kill him and risk having me in charge.
Making a half-crazy, bloodthirsty killer your second-in-command…sure, it was a good plan for a man who didn’t want the rank and file offing him.
But hello—when you make a bloodthirsty killer your heir, let’s just say it’s not the best longevity plan.
Needless to say, I was vague in explaining all of this to Valerie during our initial consultation.
Engaging an online coach—how desperate is that? But I was feeling desperate. I told her I wasn’t a people person, that I didn’t have the trust of my organization, but that I’d found myself in charge, asked whether she thought she could help.
She grasped the whole thing right away. “You’re moving from a task-oriented role to a leadership role,” she said. “It’s common for people who excel in a support role to be thrust into leadership before they’ve developed the skills. And these first weeks are crucial. Your people are watching you.”
I liked that she understood, and yeah, I know they are fucking watching me, a lot of them looking to defect, especially with the fucking Dragusha brothers out there.
“What do you think? I need those skills fast. Can I get to where I need to be? Get as good as my old boss fast enough?”
“Hell no,” she said.
I was pretty fucking unhappy with this answer. Visions of tracking her down and breaking her neck danced through my head, but then she added, “I think you can be better than your old boss, Lazarus. I’m going to help you knock this fucker out of the park.”
I felt such intense gratitude right then and there, which is saying a lot, because I don’t tend to feel much. But for this I felt gratitude.
“Do you see what I did there, Lazarus?” she asked. “Give them a vision to believe in. Be their champion, and they’ll be your champion. This is what I’ll teach you to do, with actionable steps you can start taking right away.”
Fucking Valerie. She’s the shit.
Already her moves have been helping me. She’s become my secret weapon. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little infatuated with her. She’s hot in her picture, too. But I need to concentrate on the task at hand.
Valerie says that a leader who uses fear has a limited shelf life. Fear is effective at first, but the team will begin to chafe under the yoke of fear. I need to show them strength and understanding.
I sat there patiently as she delivered this particular message over our Skype connection, complete with a mixed metaphor that puts me on a shelf driving an oxen team. I’ve learned not to point out Valerie’s mixed metaphors.
She’s wrong about fear not being effective. Still, I can use this.
Cue the anger. I put my hand on Charles’s shoulder, there in his messy office. “He will hurt,” I say. We’re in agreement there—the guard does need to hurt.
Charles seems to like this. So I start riffing. “We’re going to find him,” I say calmly. “And he is going to fucking beg to die. He is going to scream for me to end his life for what he did to you.”