Everyone have or makes a written deal about positive expert models. Long-term value of finding someone you can emulate, look up to, and learn from. That's Utopia, the view-from-the-sky outlook. Now it's time for an eye-level point of view.
The fact is that often there are few positive role models around. What better example than many of our job situations? Most of us invest countless hours bitching and complaining about how horrible our bosses are, never considering that our bosses could be used as negative role models. It never dawned on us that much can be learned from negative behavior.
Rather than spending the next few years just trashing your boss while on your shrink's couch, put him or her under the microscope and learn something. This negative behavior has a positive flip side that can help you better adjust to your position and thus do a bang-up job. How does that sound?
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Naturally, you're not going to follow your boss's example. But instead of shrugging off the behavior, learn from it and keep it in mind for future reference. It goes to show that you can learn something from everyone, even the jerks and lunatics of the world.
Remember: Anyone can be a boss. The majority of bosses weren't trained for the job. They learned by doing.
Unfortunately, you're the victim. So, why not profit from it?
I never realized it would be so much fun watching my boss screw up??
Creating a Log of Your Bosses Behavior
Once you get started, you'll actually enjoy using your boss as a negative role model. And you'll be surprised that you will learn more than you dreamed possible.
Your goal is to evaluate your boss's behavior critically and extract lessons from it. Here's how you do it. As often as possible, take notes and record your boss's behavior. It would be ideal if you can do this several times throughout the day.
However, if your schedule is frantic and you barely have time for a cup of coffee, you'll have to be content to take notes at the end of the day or possibly in the comfort of your home.
It's important to find time for this task. The more information you can record and the more precise you can be, the better you'll be able to critically evaluate your boss's negative behavior.
It's impossible to carve up a day hour-by-hour, so you could do it this way: Early morning , mid-morning noon to 2 p.m. ,mid-afternoon
"Do I Look Like Some Kind of Masochist?"
Late afternoon
Early evening
For the first few days, simply jot down the behavior patterns. Note the following observations of a veteran salesperson working for an Ohio office supply company.
Week of July 2
Early morning: Lucretia usually arrives at about 8:30 a.m. She walks into her office, barely acknowledges anyone, and closes the door. Five minutes later, she comes out, coffee cup in hand, and heads for our floors kitchen where the coffee is brewing. She pours herself a cup, heads back into her office, and closes the door behind her. We don't see her again until about 10:30 a.m.
Mid-morning: Lucretia emerges from her office to get the regional sales reports from the salespeople. She grabs the sales reports and takes them into her office, closing the door behind her. About 11:30 a.m., she emerges for the morning meeting where our regional managers discuss strategies for increasing sales and breaking into new territories. If sales are down, she criticizes the managers for their poor performance. When sales are up, she says they could be better.
Noon to 2 p.m.: By 12:30 p.m., Lucretia leaves her office, closing her office door behind her. We don't see her again until 2 p.m. Often, she doesn't return until about 2:30 p.m.
You get the idea. About a week or 10 days later, go to the next step and start evaluating your boss's behavior and drawing conclusions next to each observation. For example:
Analyzing Bad Behavior
Early morning: Once again, Lucretia is her disgruntled self.
She doesn't acknowledge anyone and disappears into her office. One wonders what she does until 10:30 a.m. We interpret the closed door as a warning to stay away. The few times we've knocked on her door to get information, she seemed annoyed, as if we were interrupting something important. However, none of us had any idea of what it could be. Nevertheless, we took the hint and now wait for our leader to emerge. We assume that whatever she is doing is not work-related. She certainly wasn't discreet about that fact either.
Mid-morning: Again, Lucretia remains aloof. It almost seems as if she works at being distant. When she first took over the department, we all thought she didn't care for any of us.
On closer scrutiny, we concluded that it was a combination of insecurity, paranoia, and outright incompetence.
Noon to 2 p.m.: Again our boss remains scarce, fueling the mystery around her. Lunch hours serve as an opportunity to socialize and also get some work done in a more convivial atmosphere. Yet, Lucretia shies away from any kind of personal contact, almost fearing it like the plague. That told me a lot about her personality and her ineffectiveness as a leader.
There is no point in running through every detail of this worker's entries. But if we were to take some nuggets of information from them, it's clear that the boss is an excellent example of a negative role model.
This worker drew the following conclusions about the boss:
- She has a problem with people, yet makes no effort to communicate.
- Not only does she not reward good work, but she also has no clue how to provide constructive criticism when someone messes up.
- Like so many bad bosses, she denigrates workers in front of their peers like a parent publicly reaming a child. All it does is incur the wrath of her workers.
Summing up, this worker wrote:
Without direction, encouragement, and support, morale in our department is very low. As a result, we find ourselves working not for the company but for ourselves. What could be a career path is just a job and a paycheck. The crowbar in the machinery is our boss. Most of us are biding our time figuring out what we're going to do next. Do we stick it out and try to overcome this major obstacle, transfer to another department, or look for another job? The consensus of opinion is that we deal with it together, try to overcome this roadblock called our boss, and do an excellent job despite her.
You get the idea. After 2 to 3 weeks of observing your boss, you will come away with a wealth of information. You can stop playing organizational psychologist and concentrate on your job, having gained new insight. By then, it will be clear to you that each one of your boss's negative traits is a lesson for what not to do both as a boss and also as a worker who must work harmoniously with others.
There is no such thing as a perfect work setting; yet, it's the responsibility of both management and workers to come as close as possible to that elusive goal. By observing Lucretia, this worker was able to see the effects her behavior had on the staff. As the worker noted, the flip side was that Lucretia's problems and inadequacies brought this worker closer to her coworkers. Intelligent analysis, rather than simply bellyaching and complaining, welded them into a stronger team.
Advice: The process of seeing your boss as a negative role model requires you to step back from the relationship to see it more clearly. In the process, you'll learn a great deal. Chances are you are going to share your knowledge with fellow workers.
Hence, a common bond, better teamwork, and camaraderie result. When apathy is replaced by understanding and hope, a new and healthier coping mechanism emerges.
There is real value in using your boss as a negative role model.
