Approachability.
The most important quality of a good boss is approachability.
The second is technical competence.
Pointless being good on the tools if we don’t feel comfortable seeking your advice.
Stepping In.
Wise bosses only step in and deploy their authority to resolve a right-versus-right decision impasse.
Bad bosses step in to remind us of their power.
Slow is Fast.
Anyone trying to sell something to you - from cornflakes to god - ignored instinct.
Instead they took the time to take the five steps to a good decision allowing them to decide how to take advantage of you acting on instinct.
Including how to convince you to trust and act on instinct.
Right at Appointment.
It’s said that some are like a broken clock: right twice a day.
Bad bosses are like a frozen digital calendar: right at their appointment.
You Never Had a Chance.
It’s not your lack of qualifications, skills, talent, experience, or work ethic that caused the boss to turn you down for that role.
It’s that you aren’t on the sidelines of his child’s Saturday morning hockey games.
Your father wasn’t a member of Parliament.
You didn’t work with him seven years ago.
You didn’t laugh at his witty asides.
You aren’t at church with him.
You have integrity.
Accessory.
The disengagement from our work begins the first time we suspect we’re an accessory to a lie.
This could be as early as the recruitment interview and as late as the termination letter.
Our mind and soul must reconcile what we know to be true - and what our job compels us to do.
Dis-integrating ourselves from our work allows us to protect our soul from corruption.
Deluded.
Some bad bosses are well-meaning but incompetent.
Most bad bosses are delusional.
They sincerely believe the title ‘Boss’ endows them with unique wisdom and authority to know and see what lesser beings cannot.
Blind to their incompetence and its consequences.
The deluded bad boss cannot be fixed by 360 reviews, or third party culture surveys, or attending professional development.
The only remedy for the destructive effects of a bad boss on people and organisations is for the governing body to remove them.
Assuming of course that the boss of the bad boss isn’t themselves - deluded.
The Price.
Our beliefs are often secured at the price of Truth.
Our status is often secured at the price of someone else’s.
The Shadow People.
Who really holds all the power in any organisation?
It’s not the bosses or managers so-called leaders.
It’s:
The critics.
The cynics.
The insecure.
The hypocrites.
The sycophants.
The shadow people.
Know This.
Know this.
If you truly seek ‘Leadership’.
If you’re absolutely positively sure you want to ‘Lead’.
If you think you’re ready to be a ‘Leader’.
Then be prepared for:
Criticism.
Resistance from all quarters.
Loneliness.
Self-doubt.
Betrayal.
Failure.
You will fail against all the worldly measures of success.
So best you have your own.
Hiking Up the Mountain.
Hiking up the mountain, the world whispers:
‘Pause! Look!’
But you’re busy hiking up the mountain.
Hiking up the mountain, you lose your footing, and the world whispers:
‘Look around you!’
But you regain your composure and resume hiking up the mountain.
Hiking up the mountain, a dislodged boulder knocks you down and leaves you concussed.
You sit up, and look around you, your head aching.
You have to get to the top of the mountain.
It’s even more of an achievement after being struck by a rock.
You climb the mountain partly because it’s hard.
‘I was even struck by a small landslide,’ you tell your admiring friends and family afterwards.
The summit was sweeter and the view more magnificent because a rock hit you on the way up.
Censorship.
When you choose your job, you choose how much of yourself you are willing to censor.
Storyteller.
The person we call ‘leader’ or ‘boss’ is the person we entrust as organisation or workplace storyteller.
We surrender to them the job of interpreting the random events and disconnected decisions in our workplace.
The storyteller says ‘This good stuff happened because I was in charge and the bits that went wrong were someone else’s fault.’
We accept they will make themselves the hero of the story.
We hope for more than a cameo.
One Decision.
Being a good person only requires one decision:
Choose to be good to others.
Every action that follows is measured against that decision rather than a decision itself.
Are we there yet?
The Right Thing.
I drive on one side of the road and you drive on the other.
We take for granted the mutual understandings and cooperation and rules allowing our society to function cohesively.
Each day we enter into thousands of unwritten and unenforceable contracts with loved ones and strangers.
If someone swerves onto my side and we collide - there are avenues of redress and restoration for my loss.
But what happens when the boss doesn’t follow the rules?
Not enough to trigger avenues of industrial redress but sufficiently damaging to put a ding or scratch in my wellbeing.
What happens when an organisation doesn’t behave as promised?
It’s not until this happens that we realise with some shock and disorientation - there is very little we can do about it.
Too petty and burdensome and even risky to engage the machinery of any legal process, assuming one exists.
But significant enough to dent our trust and sense of how the world operates.
Our lives and society depend - to a degree we rarely appreciate - on other people doing the right thing
