CNA938 Rewind - What to know about the new Pope Leo XIV
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USA Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the new pope and leader of the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday (May 8) and has taken the name Pope Leo XIV. Aged 69 and originally from Chicago, Prevost has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru and became a cardinal only in 2023. Hairianto Diman and Susan Ng find out more about the first American pope with Professor Jonathan Tan, Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies, Case Western Reserve University
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A few months ago, a new colleague came into a meeting prepared with fresh, thoughtful ideas for improving user acquisition. Then, as the ideas were presented, others in the team – myself included – responded only by shooting them down with lines like, "Oh, I don't think management will like that". At lunch afterwards, the colleague confided that it felt "gross" to watch us filter everything only through the lens of the higher-ups' approval. I instantly realised that they were right. We'd been conditioned by rejection to only pitch what might slip through, not what we believed would work. Many write this off as low morale. That is why burnout rates are higher than ever, they'll say. But there's a difference between "low morale" and learned helplessness, which is a more insidious phenomenon where we internalise our limits so much that we forget we ever had any agency at all. 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I deeply admired my colleague's enthusiasm but over time, after getting pitches and proposals shot down time and again, that energy faded. The colleague spoke up less and eventually said: "I had to force myself to get up and go to work every day." The problem isn't apathy – it's often the opposite. We care, but some of us have been taught that caring gets either punished or ignored. So we recalibrate, retreating into silence or safe mediocrity. We stop pitching or volunteering for projects that once excited us. We nod through meetings instead of speaking and agree to everything instead of debating and questioning. More often as time goes by, we start hearing and using phrases like these: "There's no point", "They won't let us" or "We've tried that already". If trying is always a losing game, why bother playing at all? HOW DO WE BECOME 'HELPLESS'? Learned helplessness doesn't appear out of nowhere. It is cultivated, usually by a combination of systemic patterns that wear us down over time. One of the biggest culprits: micromanagement. When our leaders consistently override our decisions or scrutinise our every move, we stop taking initiative. I've been in workplaces where, after having my suggestions dismissed enough times, I stopped offering them altogether. I started waiting on my bosses for directions on everything. They got tired of it after a while and scolded me: "I hired you for this. You should be the one giving me the answers." Yet, despite their words, their actions continued to signal to me that my initiative was not wanted. Next: absence of ownership. When we have no real say in our work or how it is executed, emotional investment fades. Tasks become chores instead of contributions. I've seen managers hired to make executive decisions wind up silenced and sidelined by direct superiors with no background in the area they were overseeing. 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That clarity is the first line of protection for both parties. Are we respecting the terms laid out in our employment contracts, such as working hours, role definitions, and rest periods? Or are we glorifying burnout and unpaid overtime as "loyalty" or "commitment"? Leaders should know when they are demanding too much of their teams, and workers should recognise when they are being handed responsibilities that don't belong to them. 2. Offer pathways, not just blocks Both bosses and workers need to create a culture where pushback isn't punished. We say we want input and feedback, but how do we respond to them? Are we simply saying "no" to save ourselves the effort of trying? Do we strive to make our criticism constructive, rather than restrictive or destructive? This isn't about softening the truth – it's about communicating it in a way that encourages discussion and collaboration instead of shutting it down altogether. Don't just say: "This doesn't make sense." Explain why. 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