Toxic Entitlement

Eric Thorsen
Jul 10, 2024
2 min read

I was working with a co-founder of a startup the other day, and we were going over several issues and they casually mentioned that one of their top performers is consistently late to meetings. In fact, they sometimes don't show up at all.

When I asked about how long it has been going on…it was months!

I understand that there are valid reasons why someone might be late or need to miss…family emergency, critical production issue, sales call going long….but other than these exceptional circumstances. Otherwise, there is NO excuse.

I’ve yet to meet someone who tells me they have plenty of free time and not enough work…which means the attendees at a meeting have a lot of other things to do…their time is critical…their time is valuable.

The level of toxic entitlement required to treat the rest of the attendees with such disdain and disrespect IMO can be harmful to the culture of a company.

I'm well aware of this sense of toxic entitlement and how damaging it can be because I used to be an offender.

Early in my business, I would schedule meetings and consistently, or certainly very often show up 10-15 minutes late…sometimes I would cancel the meeting after it already started.

I felt entitled…after all I was the CEO and founder of the company and had ‘important’ things to do.

Eventually. one of my employees, following a core value in our organization of “Say what needs to be said”, called me out on this behavior.

He mentioned that he's got a pile of work he’s expected to do .... A meeting is scheduled on his calendar and he feels completely disrespected when I show up late or worse, cancel.

Once I calmed down internally from this blunt feedback and put myself in his shoes…it became so clear. If that was done to me, I would feel the same!

I understand that meetings can feel like they are in the way of getting other work done…effective communication is critical to making sure the right work is getting done.

We now have guidelines for proper meeting etiquette that is covered in our onboarding process. This is not a small thing. We also pay attention to how many meetings are taking place…to avoid overload.

I encourage CEOs and founders I’m working with to do the same.

Time is money.

Time is finite.

Everyone in the organization deserves to be treated with respect…no exceptions.