Who knows where fantasies come from (Movies or books)? How about from conversations? As for fantasies about perfect bosses, maybe a relative told you how much she loved her job because she was encouraged to do her own thing. You thought since she had a great boss you would also. Because of her positive experience, you immediately concluded that a good boss is the key to a great job.
Let s conjure an image of the storybook boss you have always dreamed of having. When a small group of people asked to describe the perfect boss, interestingly, each one cited similar traits and personality styles. Rather than summarize each one, we put them together to form a composite picture of the perfect boss.
Here's what he/she looks like:
- Easy to look up to and emulate.
- Stands out in a crowd.
- Has the bearing and attitude of a leader.
- Takes good care of himself/herself.
- Meticulous about dress and personal habits.
- Example and mentor to others.
- First one to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night.
- Encourages teamwork and does not play favorites.
- Door is open to everyone.
- Can handle pressure.
- Doesn't take problems out on the staff.
- Mobilizes everyone to get the work done.
- Delivers criticism in a positive way.
- Never raises his or her voice to staff members.
- Gives criticism constructively and in private so staffers don't feel like they're being publicly reamed.
- Meetings are short and productive. Rather than use them as a vehicle to exert power or crucify the staff, he or she turns them into serious brainstorming sessions where everyone leaves motivated.
- Recognizes, appreciates, and rewards hard work.
- Makes you want to do your best because it will pay off in something positive, be it a bonus, raise, promotion, or just a pat on the back and nice word.
- Encourages talent and creativity. It s a pleasure to come to work in the morning.
Wow! Here comes the big question: Have you ever been able to heap all those adjectives on any of the bosses you have had? It sure sounds good. Wouldn't you love to meet this person?
What are your chances of having a perfect boss? Conservatively, the odds are worse than winning the lottery. So why concern ourselves with perfect bosses? Perfection is a myth, which means there is no such thing as a perfect anything, be it bosses, employees, friends, mates, pets, you name it. Now let s blow the myth to smithereens by looking at some of the bosses we have had.
BOSS HISTORY
Here's a sobering blast-from-the-past exercise guaranteed to stir up unpleasant memories. Look at some of the bosses you have had. Depending on your age and the number of bosses you've had to endure, this could keep you busy for the next year of your life. Don't be uptight about admitting a boss put you in therapy. You're not alone. Some therapists owe at least 40 percent of their income to bosses.
The goal is not to look at every boss you've had but to the few memorable ones that left an indelible impression. Most people remember their first boss. If they were lucky, it was a good experience that set the tone for the rest of their career. But whether he or she is your first or last, don't rush through the exercise. Give it time and thought. Sure you'll learn a lot.
Once you have your bosses picked out, answer these questions:
- What was your first impression of this person?
- What did you like about him or her?
- What didn't you like about him or her?
- Did you have anything in common?
- Did you make a connection with this person?
- Did you learn anything from this person?
Note on First Jobs: The world is new and startling to a new born baby. Everything around the newborn--people, places, and things--has a profound effect. So say the Freudians. It's the same thing with first jobs. If the initial job experience is positive--you like the job, boss, and coworkers--you expect all the jobs that follow to be positive as well. First jobs set the stage and mood for your career. Conversely, if the first experience was a brief detour into madness, you have been traumatized and expect subsequent jobs to be equally horrendous. No matter what kind of first job experience you have, count on deprogramming yourself the minute you leave it. Each job means starting over by building new relationships. The tough part is getting an accurate reading on your boss before you take a job. Why walk into a battle zone if you can avoid it? Now, a first job impression.
Copywriter
I considered myself fortunate. Unlike many of my classmates, I landed a job in a mid-size advertising agency 2 months after I graduated college. A couple of my friends didn't find jobs until 8 to 10 months later. I felt like I was on top of the world.
Naturally, I was excited. This was my christening into the world of work. Like any young person starting out, I entertained rich fantasies about what that first job would be like.
I was nervous that first day. I hadn't met my boss because there had been a recent reorganization. The decision to hire me was made by human resources and the senior vice president in charge of creative services. I was taken aback when we met on the first Monday I reported to work. My boss was maybe 5 years older than me. 1 expected someone older and more experienced. I wasn't thrilled when he told me it was his second job and his first supervisory position. ''Oh, God," I thought, "it is the blind leading the blind." But it wasn't like that at all. He was smart and very sure himself. He also looked great. He was smartly dressed and well groomed. The package was impressive.
I made peace with his age by telling myself that if he could move up the ladder this quickly, then I could too. Yet there was a restlessness and nervousness about him that made me uneasy. While he exuded confidence, he seemed anxious to get the amenities over with and get back to work. I expected him to take me under his wing and spend time with me explaining what to do. But that wasn't the case. There is no handholding in an ad agency. Time is money, and my boss didn't intend to waste precious hours showing me the ropes and boosting my ego. It was more than evident from my first half-hour meeting with the man that he was under pressure. His boss must have been on his back; there were deadlines to meet and clients to please. No time to wet-nurse a junior copywriter.
The writing on the wall was crystal clear. It was sink or swim. I was taken to my little cubicle where I was assigned to another junior copywriter who had been there about a year.
She briefed me on the clients we'd be working with and gave me my first writing assignments. That was the last I saw of my boss for about a week. I liked the fact that he was a no-non-sense person who gets right down to work, but I wished he'd have spent more time with me. I wanted him to get to know me a little and hear my ideas. But he was all business and didn't have time for anything that didn't concern an immediate project. After I was there a few months, I began to understand why. The man was up against the wall 10 hours a day. The place was a pressure-cooker and the turnover was incredibly high, which didn't make me feel better. Looking back, I appreciate the fact that my boss spared me the news that most of the junior copywriters never made it to the second year.
They either quit because the pressure was so intense or they were fired because their work was inadequate. I regret not making a connection with this person. Maybe he felt it was better to keep a professional distance. That way, it would be easier dispensing criticism or firing me, perish the thought. I may have been young and inexperienced, but I was intelligent enough to know that it was only a job. It wasn't a life-or-death kind of thing. Whether you were a junior or senior person, we were all vulnerable. It would have made for a better relationship if he had loosened up a bit and come across as more human.
But I learned that when starting a new job you have to be ready to hit the ground running. It's great if you have a lot of guidance, but don't expect it. The faster you can master your job, the better off you are.
Welfare Investigator
Jeanne was the third boss I had. My previous bosses were workaholic dynamos. They were the last word in efficiency. Jeanne was the exact opposite. I was totally thrown off by her. She was bright, articulate, and said all the right things, but when it came to getting work done and making decisions, she was out in left field. In fact, if she had a lot on her plate, she turned into a basket case.
I discovered this fact during my third week on the job when I needed her to sign off on a large monthly outlay for a large family who just migrated from Cuba. Jeanne was a welfare department supervisor in charge of over 500 indigent --Your Boss Is Just Another Person Holding Down a Job-- families spread out all over LA. My job as investigator was to do the initial screening and turn in a report on whether I thought they were eligible for public assistance. I also was responsible for coming up with a budget that met the family needs based on the number of people in the family, their ages, and whether anyone in the family was working. That was tough enough. But I quickly discovered that the real frustration was getting Jeanne, my supervisor, to sign off on the family acceptance and budget. She was indecisive and frightened about making big decisions. If the budget exceeded a certain amount of money, she needed approval from her boss. What's more, her output was supervised on a regular basis by her boss, which nearly drove her to drink. But the real pity was that the 50-odd investigators who did all the fieldwork had to wait in line while she waffled until finally making her decision. I was so frustrated at times that I wanted to sock her.
She wasn't a bad person; she was just scared, indecisive, and lacked guts. Meanwhile, she asked constant questions, had us redo budgets, and go back to clients to get additional information. Often, clients suffered because they waited weeks or months before they got their first check. We just tried to do accurate fieldwork so she would approve whatever clients we presented.
Jeanne loved the work and was very knowledgeable, but I realized not everyone is cut out to be a boss. She couldn't take the pressure and responsibility of making constant, sometimes rapid-fire, decisions. There were days when we needed to approve as many as 25 new cases. That was more than she could handle. There were times she was so overwhelmed that the poor woman was brought to a complete standstill. Hindsight allows me to be sympathetic and understanding. But when I was in the middle of all that chaos, I was so frustrated I could scream.
Nevertheless, I look back on the job as a good learning experience. When I realized I couldn't function in that kind of restrictive environment, I moved on. I decided to use the experience as a steppingstone to another job where I could get things done more quickly and not have to contend with an insecure boss.
Engineer
John was the sixth boss I had and one of the most memorable for a lot of reasons. I was 42 at the time and felt confident about my abilities and knowledge of the construction industry.
I consider myself fortunate that John was my boss. He was certainly no perfect boss, yet he was great for me. 1 lucked out because we had compatible personalities. John was temperamental, opinionated, and erratic, but one the fairest people I've ever met. He had a built-in sense of justice. By the same token, he was impatient and intolerant and wasn't much for small talk. He loved his work and his job, and that is what I respected most. All he cared about was doing the best job he could, and he expected the same from everyone under him. If you did a good job, he let you know it. But if you screwed up, he didn't hesitate to rake you over the coals. As he saw it, you were there to be productive and to learn. If you couldn't cut it, the message was get out and find another job. Blunt and to the point, I liked the fact that you knew where you stood with this guy.
I realized that the first moment I met him. That first interview told the whole story. Unlike some of the other managers I worked for, who delighted in putting engineers through rambling psychological interviews during which ridiculous questions were asked, John didn't ask me any questions about my feelings on work, people, or the meaning of life. He didn't want to know about my people skills either. He didn't care. All he cared about was whether I could do the job. He figured if I could pull that off, everything else would fall into place. He was right.
John wasn't the kind of boss you went drinking with after work or played golf with on weekends. He drew the line when it came to that kind of stuff. I liked that, too. He was strong, tough, and predictable. While I got on fine with him, some of the other engineers couldn't stand him. They resented him for being standoffish and not giving them enough input and direction. They also didn't like the fact that he was not a hand holder.
If you were paranoid and insecure, John was not a good boss to have. He didn't care about your personal hang-ups. His philosophy was if you have emotional problems, leave them home. If it doesn't affect your work, I don't want to know about it. John proves that chemistry between people is critical. Did you ever meet a couple and say to yourself, "Wow, they are a weird couple. They are so different, yet they get on perfectly"? That's often the way it is with many a boss. John and I were very different, yet we meshed perfectly at work. I doubt we could ever be friends, yet in a boss-worker relationship, we were perfectly matched. There is no figuring human chemistry.
"YOU MEAN MY BOSS IS ACTUALLY A HUMAN BEING???
Do You Think You Can Do a Better Job?
That exercise was more fun than you expected. What did raking up memories of past bosses tell you? As shocking as it sounds, you have discovered that your bosses are human beings just like yourself. They have warts and blemishes; they're inconsistent, erratic, and sometimes you feel like tossing them out of a window. Still, you can chalk it all up to human nature.
What better time to take a long sober look at yourself? As shocking as it seems, one day you may become a boss. Ponder that scary thought. What then? What will you bring to the table? Forget about how talented you are. That's the smallest part of the equation. Do you have the right personality traits to be a boss? What about all your neuroses? You say you're high-strung now. With 15 people to supervise, you may be bouncing off walls. Not only will you have your own work to do, you'll also have to monitor the performance of others. You'll have to praise and admonish them, not to mention suffer through the headache job of writing performance reviews once a year. That's the easy part. What about the difficult workers, the folks who act up, get out of line, or just plain snap?
The time will come when you'll have to give someone the heave-ho. You'll call the poor schlep into your office, close the door, look solemn, and tell the quaking worker who's been with the company 35 years that there has been a redeployment of resources and you have no choice but to sever his relationship with the company. How are you going to handle it when this bull of a man breaks down and begs you to reconsider? He tells you he's sinking in debt caring for his sick parents, paying college tuition for his 10 kids, not to mention paying child support from a previous marriage. When he looks at you with big teary eyes and begs you to have some compassion, what will you say?
Needless to say, exchanges like this are not fun. If you hope to succeed as a boss, you'll have to be a master of human interaction. Are you up to the task?
WE'RE IN THIS THING TOGETHER
Food for thought: Boss-subordinate relationships are complex. The mistake most of us make is not taking responsibility for the relationship. Whether they're good or bad, we see bosses as enemies, put on earth to torment us and make our lives miserable. So we cleverly extricate ourselves from the relationship, putting the full burden on the boss. In reality, it's a two-way street, and although you're the subordinate, you're never the less a major player. Where would the boss be without you? In fact, you may be more than just another cog in the wheel.
You could be one of the company's critical support beams. Maybe you're indispensable. That puts another whole spin on the picture, doesn't it? You have got power and leverage that you weren't aware of.
In short, you need each other. It sounds corny, but in an almost perfect world, the boss-subordinate relationship is a partnership. When it works, it amounts to a good marriage; when it fails, it can be a disaster.
Advice: Take some responsibility for the relationship. Like the cliché says, "It takes two to tango."
