The Boss is The Boss.

The first job of a leader is to define reality.

One of the many risks of holding positional power in an organisation is the boss is the boss. She doesn’t have to define the reality. She can make it up as she goes along. She can literally declare white to be black and black, white. Then yellow the next day. Or maybe decree black to be dark navy. The organisation proceeds to plan and execute on this basis. Her lieutenants aiding and abetting - as good lieutenants do. After all, she’s the boss.

It’s a brave person who corrects a positional power boss. Why? Because a positional power boss relies solely on their declaration of reality. That’s the very essence of how they operate. Not on any subject matter expertise or technical qualifications. Simply the authority to declare ‘Thus is so.’ After all, that’s their job: to ‘lead’. Or as one of my Warrant Officers once joked: ‘What’s the use of power if you can’t abuse it?’

The boss is the boss.

Question the accuracy of the boss’s reality, and you threaten the boss. Naturally the boss will respond by removing the threat: you. The boss justifies this (assuming she ever has to justify her actions) with: ‘She was not a team player,’ or the like. No boss will ever say: ‘She threatened my authority,’ or ‘She disagreed with my reality.’

The larger the organisation, the longer the boss’s declaration of reality will remain unchallenged and uncorrected. But just as Reality will quickly smack a small organisation in the face, it will eventually do the same to a large one. The larger the organisation, the longer it takes for reality to bite. Sometimes it’s years.

And usually long after the boss has moved on. Often riding on her success as a boss at her last organisation.