Some people mistake leadership for aggression.

In this case, a man shares the story of when a regional vice president tried to use him as an example in the middle of a speech.

He told him to leave and not come back until he was wearing the company’s “uniform”.

Let’s see how it panned out.

All of my employees wear white shirts

This is from the 80’s.

I was the East Coast expert on a big mainframe company network gear.

I was associated with the manufacturing plant, but I did customer site visits to help field engineering either install or more often fix installations that were not working.

On customer visits, it was suit and tie.

Since I often worked in computer rooms I never wore white shirts because of the dirt issue.

(Plus TBH they make me look like the Sta-Puff Marshmallow guy.)

That’s just common sense.

Normal was an up and down striped button down shirt in a blue, pale green, etc.

Fly to Boston to work with a sales droid on configuration of a system they were trying to sell to a big bank.

Sales droid says minor change, first we need to go to this mandatory sales droid meeting headed up by the regional VP of sales. Fine.

But it wouldn’t be as simple as it sounded.

Get there, sea of white shirts, ties and me in my colored shirt.

Sit in 5th row, room has about 50-60 droids.

Regional VP gets on stage, doing his best “excite the troops to go out and sell millions” speech. Clapping and cheering, etc.

Mid sentence he sees me and stops.

“Hey you, where is your white shirt?”

Oh, Lord.

I look around, figure he may be talking to me, so I point to myself.

“Yea, you in the blue shirt. ALL of my staff, everyone that works for me wears a white shirt”.

“Ok, good to know, thanks”

He wasn’t aware he was in a cult now.

“Thanks?!?! Get out. And don’t come back until you are wearing a white shirt.”

“You want me to go, and not come back unless I’m wearing a white shirt?”

“Yes, get out now.”

So I get up, walk to the aisle, turn and go “Hey, do you know who I am?”

“No, I don’t ******* know who you are and I don’t ******* care. Out.”

But that guy wasn’t expecting the response he was about to get.

“Super, then for the rest of you, I’m Name, the east coast expert in ‘networking’ product out of ‘plantname’ and I work for the Director of Engineering there.”

“So I don’t work for him, and it’s unlikely that I’ll be back since I don’t own a white shirt.”

Left. Flew home. Frantic voice mails from the sales droid about his customer.

Interesting how they started treating him better.

Next day, dropped into Director of Engineering’s office to give a trip report.

He starts “So Name, you were a big hit at the sales meeting. VP of sales called to apologize and wants you to come back.”

“Nope, not going to happen. If he comes here, wearing a colored shirt and apologizes to me, I’ll consider it.”

“He’s not going to do that.”

A stubborn person in the wrong met another stubborn person.

“Fine, not traveling to that region. I’ll talk to people on the phone, I can do my job that way just fine” and walked out.

Called my sales droid and said we’d work on the phone, not coming back up. Droid not happy, but understood.

Week later reception calls that I have a guest.

Go to lobby and there is my director and the regional VP of sales wearing a BLUE SHIRT.

Best apology ever!!

That kind of outlandish behavior often backfires.

That guy learned a lesson.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this.

Yup.

Someone mentions another story.

This commenter shares their thoughts.

Someone shares a similar experience.

Another reader chimes in.

Nowadays, we call this kind of behavior narcissism.

Leadership should never involve humiliating others.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.