The friendly gentleman sitting next to me on the airplane said:
“I like my boss because he is genuinely interested in me and what I’m doing. He doesn’t just ask generally how things are going, he says, ‘how’s the [specific] project going?’ I know he’s paying attention and cares. When I first started working for him, he told me ‘you are going to make mistakes. It’s not avoidable. The only thing I ask is when you make a big mistake, let me know early on so I can run interference and so we can learn from it.’ I have a lot of latitude to do my job the way I see fit.”
Lucky for him, I thought. That’s a great boss.
In my travels I have the good fortune to talk with people from around the world. When they hear I work in leadership development, it’s not unusual for them to tell me about their own boss.
The friendly gentleman continued,
“My last boss was not so great. He was as unpredictable as the weather in New England. That was really hard.”
I had to laugh. What a great term to describe the fatal flaw that kept this boss from being effective: a New England Weather manager. (In New England we say, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”)
Over the years I’ve heard people use a lot of funny terms to describe their boss’s fatal flaw. Here are some actual things I’ve heard people say:
Microwave Manager: “You have to be careful around Bob. He’s a microwave manager.” (When I asked what they meant, they explained that if you put the wrong thing in a microwave, it blows up.)
White Rabbit: “Everything with Gayle is a rush. We call her ‘The White Rabbit.’ And because we get our assignments at the last minute, we’re late before we’ve begun.”
Tight Underwear Manager: “Peter is so uptight. It sucks the fun out of every project. I think his underwear is too tight.”
Climbing the Ladder Manager: “He was more concerned about how he looked than about what we were doing. All he really cared about was climbing the corporate ladder.”
My Way or the Highway Manager: “Susan won’t let go of control. We don’t bother making suggestions. It’s ‘my way or the highway.’”
Alta Cocker: “Marvin’s an alta cocker. He tells us he’s too old to change and we’ve got to figure out how to adapt to him.” (If you don’t know what that term means, it’s Yiddish. Check it out.)
Seagull Manager: “He’s usually off flying around somewhere, but every once in a while, he swoops in unexpectedly, makes a lot of noise, dumps a load, and then flies off again.”
After I finished laughing at the gentleman’s description of his last boss, I asked him, “What about you? What kind of leader are you?”
He paused a moment and said, “I hope I am the same kind of boss that I want to have as my own boss.”
Do you know how your people describe you?
Are you the kind of boss you’d like to have as your own boss? … or do your people have a special term to describe you?
How are you going to find out?
I am going to have to borrow “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”
It would be very relevant for the weather in Cape Town. It is one of the questions I ask in an interview, “what do you look for in a manager or someone leading you”? It is more to give me a sense of the personality fit given I know the hiring manager and want to make sure that there is no clash there. What is interesting is when I explore the person’s own management style. You will be surprised at how some people do not recognise that what they expect and how they operate are in conflict. It is not a lot of people, I am just baffled by the blind spot to it.
I have observed the same thing, Thabo – the lack of connection between what people expect and how they operate. Unless we get feedback, quite often our “self-perception” is really “self-deception.”
ps. I enjoyed hearing how similar the weather is at your Sea Point.
I think about this almost everyday. I work in the public sector and had a boss once that told me I was doing good work. When I asked what I could do to get better his reply was “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” He had no idea what kind of work I was doing. It motivated me to be a better Leader because I didn’t want those working for me to think the same thing. Leaders need to understand that it’s their job to serve their people.
Thanks so much for sharing your personal experience, Troy. What a difference it makes when your boss makes a personal connection and really want to know what you are doing. Ideally we learn from good role models, but as you show, we can also learn from the bad ones.
Loved your parting question – “How are you going to find out?” Great questions are the sign of a great thinker.
Thanks Fay! 🙂
I’ve only supervised people for a couple of years, and I started out with the notion that I only needed to be the kind of boss that I wanted to have. What I noticed, however, is that doing so made our relationship more about what I wanted than what my direct reports needed. I was assuming they were just like me, when I should have been tailoring my leadership style to their own unique strengths. I have found more success in listening to the people I supervise and figuring out together what sort of boss I need to be to help them work to their best potential. I then strive to keep our lines of communication open so that I keep giving them what they need. While it’s good to start with “what kind of boss would I want?”, but I think it’s better to move towards, “what kind of boss do they need?”
Your point is excellent, Meg. It sounds like your ideal boss is one who takes your needs, strengths and personal style into account and responds to you according to what is needed in the situation – not one who uses the exact same style with everyone. On the other hand, there may be some unique, enduring qualities that are not situational, such as integrity, respect, and contact. Great food for thought. Thanks so much for adding to the conversation!
Great post and comments. An effective way of answering the question ‘do you know how your people describe you?’ is to ask them what I call this ‘golden question’:
Is there anything I could do; more of, less of, or differently that would improve your job satisfaction?
Why?
Because the style of management we use with our employees – and their response to that style – has a significant impact on job satisfaction. In this question we are looking for both feedback on our style and ideas for how you could adapt that style to meet the needs of the employee (but without using the – sometimes confusing – jargon of ‘management style’!)
PS some years ago I was described by one of my employees as ‘Tigger on Acid’ (Trans – Tigger: a tiger-like fictional character who just loves bouncing, Acid: the fluid that keeps a car battery running. At least I think that’s what he meant). I’m guessing you can see he didn’t exactly mean this as a compliment!
Great question to ask your people: “Is there anything I could do; more of, less of, or differently that would improve your job satisfaction?” Thanks so much for sharing it. Your question addresses Meg’s point about the importance of understanding what your people need from you.
Thanks also, Joan, for sharing another funny term people have used to describe their boss. (Love the Winnie-the-Pooh character Tigger).
Kudos to you for taking the comment to heart and learning how to be a better boss.
Intriguing thoughts, Jesse. The idea of finding out what kind of leader we want to be (or need to be) and assessing what kind of leadership we are actually exhibiting is a difficult one. I think of Marshal Goldsmith’s book, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”. Goldsmith points out how bad we really are at self assessment. I think answering your question first requires that leaders submit to honest and candid 360 feedback. Not matter what we think of ourselves, we’ll never be totally accurate. Some of us will be way to hard on ourselves, while others of us will be way to kind. We need the candid and unbiased feedback of others.
Secondly, I think we can effectively discern the type of boss we are by looking at those we lead. Max Depree states, “The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers”. John Maxwell writes, “people may teach what they know, but they reproduce what they are.” I think those of us who are parents can identify with this one. If you want to know yourself, look closely at the people you influence. They are most likely a reflection of you.
You pose the question, “how are you going to find out”? I think this is such a critical application. I would submit that two effective ways of finding out are through candid 360 feedback programs and taking a hard look at the people you influence. Additionally I would submit that a ineffective way to find out is through simple self assessment. I think we are all pretty bad at self assessment. At least I am…
Thanks-
Micah Yost
@GroupThrive
Thanks for adding to the conversation, Micah. Your two suggestions for how to find out are spot on:
-confidential 360 feedback (or even 180) is very powerful
– looking at the atmosphere of your team and specifically at the people you lead (are they happy and productive?)
You are wise not to depend on self-assessment. We need objective feedback from our environment, mostly because we don’t know what we don’t know. How many of us get dressed in the morning without looking in a mirror at some point before we leave our home?
On a pretty different line of thought, I also loved your article for the positive attitude it triggers. You’re not happy with your boss? You spend a lot of time and energy complaining? … Well maybe part of that energy can be reinvested in a different place: focus on what you can do, both for yourself and your people.
The very title of your post caught my attention and I just had to read it because I remembered this Executive who tended to spend so much time criticizing the leadership team above him. Let’s be fair – there were some good reasons for it. Tough business times, and indeed an overstretched leadership team.
Yet this Exec brought much more to everyone around – and himself included – by focussing on what he could do instead of blaming others above. Sometimes your management is not up to your expectations but at least part of what you would have wished to get from him/her, you can recreate or find elsewhere.
And that’s partly an answer to your final question: good leaders are great at developping their people. If your boss isn’t (no feedback, no motivational messages, no development opportunities…), you can still work with your team, with your colleagues and other key partners in your organization either to get that feedback, that inspiration or even those stretch exercises you’re looking for.
So thanks for the inspiration, Jesse !
And thanks for the good laugh – I had never come across the seagull manager expression but I certainly have already witnessed its fly, and it’s just a perfect picture 🙂
Greetings from Paris,
Fabienne
http://www.coaching-ab.com
Hi Fabienne, Your points are well taken. We bring much more to everyone around when we focus on what we can do instead of blaming others for what they’re not doing. I agree that an essential quality of good leaders is to develop their people, and also to protect and support them. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your own insights and adding to the conversation. Merci! Jesse
Hi Jesse: I really enjoyed Dr. G’s post, and I concur that communication (the apex, the linchpin the conduit for leadership, management and success) rests on our ability to understand the communication and listening style of others.
Developing the insight to move past our filters and other barriers to understanding another is a skill set that can be learned. I believe it is an critical skill set and have worked diligently with individual clients to help them manage and lead not only others better, but themselves by learning to understand the communication style of others and to ask questions that truly clarify the other party’s goal in communication as well as what is really bothering them.
We are all social and emotional beings and there is always an underlying emotion that triggers communication.
Best! Irene
Hey Jesse!
Great post.
Had a good laugh and thoroughly enjoyed.
Thanks! 🙂