My superiors want me to pretend in front of my subordinates that I support a company policy I disagree with. How do I handle this instruction?

There does exist a risky option, that if you have a leader that frequently pivots to new things, or people cycle in and out of that position every few years, then this may be viable:

Ignore, Delay & Bypass

I witnessed something similar to this situation where an executive was pushing a bad decision, and the people several levels below who would be implementing it were keeling over laughing at how absurd it was. So with their immediate leader's support they ignored it.

When higher ups asked them for status on their integration of it, they seemed to always have very high priority tasks from customers coming up that were delaying their availability to implement the changes, or they could not risk making any changes while they were in the middle of a critical deployment. It was impressive watching said lead's ability to come up with excuses to kick the responsibility down the road by a month or two.

Eventually the executive moved on to the next initiative and thus no one was pushing or checking on that bad decision. Other groups in the organization quickly reverted back, mean while their group continued on as nothing had happened.

One key aspect of this strategy is delaying. Even if you eventually have to come in line with a decision, you can take lessons from other groups and mitigate some of the negatives. Also if other groups go through the painful transition first and leadership can see the fallout of the decision they may relent before your group is forced.

Then the last aspect is bypassing. A former coworker once had a requirement pushed upon them that thou shall use a specific framework. Problem was said framework was never intended for said product. So they used it for small portion while using a different framework that actually did the job. I will note this did carry a huge additional drawback: The leadership thought their decision worked and did not learn from their mistake and thus were likely in the future to do the same thing again.

I feel you. More precisely I feel like you are my boss. Because I just read the announcement of how we have a new Return-To-Office policy from our coprporate overlords. And how this is a great chance for us to finally... grow together as a team even more (official fairy tale) or more realisticly hate each other because we will now be penned up in bunches of 4-6 in a room with no air condition and constant phone calls that we took about an hour of traffic to even reach. Compared to the previous years of single-person air conditioned offices with no distractions at our respective homes with zero traffic.

I don't think there is a good way to transport this decision, simply because it is not logical or in the best interest of the product the company is making.

Write an official communication (E-Mail, MS Teams, whatever your official channel is) doing exactly what your bosses want. Give it your best sugar coating. Bring all their arguments and "explain" how they make total sense. It doesn't matter that it is total bullshit. You don't believe it, your coworkers don't believe it, it doesn't matter. These were your orders, you follow them.

Before you post that, call in a team meeting with no notes and no recording and tell your team that you think it sucks and you fought it, but weren't successful. Your job now is to make it work and take a boatload of lipstick to the pig. Tell them you will post that after the meeting. And if they want to bitch and moan about it, they will need to do it the old fashioned way, with a coffee in the smokers corner outside the office building. You will be there to listen and maybe chime in.

Then post it.

Whether you want to look for a better job is up to you. I'm not entirely sure myself yet. Do not make the mistake of actually trying to do what your bosses told you. You cannot. Trust is the only thing you have in terms of respect from your coworkers. Don't throw it away. They know it sucks. They know you know it sucks. You don't have to rile them up and pour gasoline into the fire, but don't sugar coat it any more than you officially have to to comply with the bosses request.

New policies are invented for a reason: to reduce costs, improve quality, increase customer satisfaction, deliver faster, retain good employees, etc etc. You don't make it clear in your question what your issue is with this policy. It will fail to achieve those aims? It will introduce negatives that outweigh those aims? The company doesn't need to achieve those aims? There are different policies that would achieve those aims with less negatives?

It's important that you understand the purpose of the policy (eg to reduce costs) and exactly why you oppose it (we don't need to reduce costs, it won't reduce costs, there are better ways to reduce costs) before speaking to your people.

Once you understand that, your instructions are, sticking with the example of reducing costs, to tell people "I want you to follow this new policy, which is being introduced to reduce costs" and not to include "even though I don't think we need to reduce them at all" or "even though I think it will fail to do so" or "even though many better options exist to reduce costs." Just give the high-level reasoning behind the policy. Passive tense ("is being introduced to") will do a lot of work for you.

Saying things like "I know this is foolish but management insists on it" will help no-one. You don't need to provide a zillion details of why this is the best policy ever. You also don't need to say you fought it, you tried, "sorry team I didn't want this but we're stuck with it" or the like. While it feels like lying to omit these sentences, they make things worse. If you truly feel "Fair enough, their prerogative" then you have to walk that walk. Folks with more experience and possibly more information than you believe that policy A will achieve aim B, and that aim B is worth achieving. That is the message you are being asked to deliver.

When people tell you "but it won't reduce costs!" or "but our costs don't need to be reduced!" or "wouldn't it be better to do this other thing instead?" you don't need to either agree or disagree with them. You can say something as simple as "this is the new policy and I am asking you to follow it."

Many years ago, I had a teacher that was great at this. A conversation of this sort would go something like this:

Teacher: OK everybody, I need to remind you all about a new rule. Starting next week, we need to make sure that ... [pauses briefly to pick up a memo from the desk]

[reading from memo, in a slightly monotone voice] ... all vehicles are removed from the North Parking Lot before 5:00 PM on Fridays.

[puts down memo and resumes speaking normally] The other lots will be open as usual so if you need to stay late, you'll have to to move your vehicle.

Student: Which lot is that? The one on the north side of campus, or the one in front of the J. E. North building?

Teacher: [picks up memo and reads from it] The North Parking Lot [slight shrug]

[speaking normally] The faculty lot behind the library is technically open to anyone between 4PM on Friday and 6AM on Monday. That's probably the easiest place to move your car to. Administration might give you a dirty look but it's posted on all the signs so they can't do anything about it.

Student: Why can't we use the north lot?

Teacher: That's where the bus access to the football stadium is.

[picks up memo and reads from it] It's important that the lot is clear so that team buses can safely access the stadium.

Student: The football season ended three weeks ago. Nobody will be using that stadium for another six months.

Teacher: That's a very good point, but don't forget that ...

[picks up memo and reads from it] ... it's important that the lot is clear so that team buses can safely access the stadium.

Student: This really doesn't make much sense.

Teacher: [reading from memo] Students should direct any questions about this policy to their teachers [shakes head "no" while reading this line]

The act of reading from the paper served the same purpose as quotation marks. It made it obvious when he was speaking for himself, and when he was simply repeating what he was instructed to say. Both the short (but slightly theatrical) pause to pick up the paper and put on his reading glasses and the slightly unnatural tone of voice used to read it further emphasized the code-switch.

He also always read from the paper verbatim, and used that to draw attention to the bits that he thought were problematic. When he strongly disagreed with something, he'd link that quote into his sentence in a way that was grammatically incorrect or unnatural. Roughly shoehorning the quote into the sentence was a sort of analogy for how the policy was being imposed from on high without regard to whether it's a good fit. Similarly, when someone asks about one of the obvious problems that management ignored, he'd answer by quoting whatever line from the paper seemed the most relevant. This was never a meaningful answer (since that issue was ignored), and the non-answer emphasized that management had not addressed it.

There was never any dishonesty because his meaning was perfectly clear. He never blamed his bosses or gave any direct opinions about management. He simply presented the information exactly as it was given to him and let the problems speak for themselves. Sometimes it felt like the literary equivalent of malicious compliance, but it let him comply with orders while making his own thoughts clear.

The leadership of your organization are cowards

and they're asking you to be a scapegoat for them because they don't want to face backlash.

They can't stand behind their own decision. They know the policy will be poorly received, but that's inconvenient for them.

"Wouldn't it be great if we can make OP take the heat for this instead of us? Let's ask him to act like it was all his/her own idea!"

It's a manipulative tactic. It's also amateurish and unprofessional, and it's not going to work. Your team will probably not believe that you came up with the stupid policy (whatever it is).

But the bigger issue is that regardless of who gets blamed for the idea, it sounds like it's going to have a toxic effect on morale. Even if no complaints ever reach Level 1's desk, the effects may include:

• valuable staff quitting (you mentioned this is already happening)
• new hires being tainted from the start by the downer atmosphere
• prospective hires not applying once word gets around.

Sometimes upper management self-sabotages, and ultimately there's little you can do to stop them.

Without knowing more details about your particular situation it's hard to suggest specific solutions, but is there maybe a way you can somewhat shield yourself and your team from the unnecessary stress that the new policy will introduce?

Normally I would suggest sending honest feedback up the chain to HR - anonymously if your company offers such an option. This can give decision-makers a chance to see potential problems with their policies and make adjustments. But in your case, since it's coming from the very top, it sounds like that won't work.

Malicious compliance can be a strategy in some cases. But ultimately you probably shouldn't expect the work environment to be sustainable long-term. Pressure is going to build up in the system, and something is going to blow. Just try to make sure it's not you.

“I have been told to tell you that I want you to adhere to this policy, and justify to you why this policy is right. I have not been told in any way by upper management to tell you this, and I will not tell you in any way to believe that upper management has anything to do with it”.

In other words, lie to your staff in the most transparently obvious way possible.

As someone with little interest in corporate politics, I'd suggest just sticking to the facts:

• This is the new company-wide corporate policy.
• This is the reasoning behind the policy.
• [If they try to argue or complain:] I get that, but there's unfortunately nothing I can do about it.

One could argue that (technically) it follows their instructions:

• It is shifting responsibility away from yourself (by stating the fact that you aren't responsible), but it is not "shifting responsibility to someone else" - you aren't pointing to anyone.
• You can say you want them to adhere to the policy on account of it being official company policy (not because you like the policy).
• You are justifying the policy to them by giving the reasoning behind the policy.

Would management see it the same way? Who can say. Would they be unhappy with that? Maybe, maybe not. Certainly the bad kind of management would not see it in a positive light and wouldn't be happy with that, but that kind of management takes everything in the worst way and tend to be actively hostile to employee happiness, so I wouldn't think too much of being insubordinate to such management, even if that risks getting fired. Are you willing to take that chance? Up to you.

I don't know that I would push back on their instructions. You can basically do as they instruct without lying, and they're not that likely (but also not that unlikely) to know how closely your private interactions with your subordinates matched their instructions. Pushing back creates waves for something that isn't super likely to be a problem if you don't push back.

How does that old saying go: It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Horrible advice in some cases, but decent advice in other cases.

There are few cases where you absolutely should strictly listen to management dictating what you are or are not allowed to say in any given interaction. This doesn't seem like one of those cases. There aren't e.g. any legal or intellectual property concerns. They're just trying to have the rank and file see management as a unified force, to minimise dissent (but that may be detrimental to your relationship with your subordinates).

You understand the above in such a way that you have to convey the new rules and the reasoning behind them as provided by management, but without saying these rules and the reasoning come from management.

I wouldn't understand it that way, and I would keep strictly to the instructions.

Do not shift responsibility to someone else by pointing e.g. to management or HR. Tell your direct reports that you want them to adhere to the policy and justify to them, why this makes sense.

There is a distinction between endorsing the logic of a policy and endorsing compliance with that policy. You can strictly follow the management's instructions without lying to your team.

The instruction asks you to:

• State that you want them to follow the rule.

• Justify why compliance makes sense.

The Solution: You want them to follow the rule because you do not want them to be reprimanded or fired. That is a genuine, personal motivation.

The Justification: It "makes sense" to follow the policy because it is now enforced by the organization. If they do not follow it, they face disciplinary action. If you do not enforce it, you face disciplinary action.

By framing it this way, you avoid "shifting responsibility" (i.e., you aren't saying "I hate this too, but HR said so"). Instead, you are taking ownership of the safety and employment security of your team. It is a literal interpretation of the orders that protects both your integrity and your team's jobs.

The boss gets to tell workers what to do.

Managers are expected to implement the decision without saying "the boss says you have to do this." This is Management 101, someone should have taught this to you. There is nothing controversial about this. If you are expected to give a reason then read the one they gave you. If not then just don't give one. "This is the new policy."

Your recourse if you don't like it is to find a new boss.