It’s hard being the boss, too!
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Rashmi Bansal ‘How bad is your boss’ asks Shyamal Majumdar, writing in Business Standard
From his piece, I learn there is a ‘bad boss’ contest running on www.workingamerica.org and it seems there is no shortage of horror stories on the subject. Shyamal observes that some of these comments are obviously exaggerated, it’s a fact that there are enough bosses who can make your life into a Dilbert strip. Though no organised surveys have been done on this issue, an informal study in India a few years ago found that almost 75 per cent of the employees surveyed identified their boss as a lousy manager. Well, here’s the view from the boss side of the fence. It is neither easy or fun being one. The most difficult lesson I learnt when I set up my own company was how hard it is to go from being an employee to an employer. But you don’t have to go the entrepreneurship route to go through this painful transition. Two, three, max four years into your job you’ll find yourself having to supervise people working under you. Suddenly it’s not enough to do your own work well – you have to be responsible for their work as well. Many times, it seems, it would be far quicker to do the job yourself. But that’s not the answer. Mistakes are made. You can’t yell, yet you have to let the person know something went wrong. Or well, you can yell– but then you’d be a bad boss. It seems perfectly unfair – someone else screws up and you have to broach the subject with patience and understanding instead of venting your own anger and frustration. Being a boss – a good one - requires a great deal of emotional energy. As you rise higher and higher, you just need more and more of it. Remember the old aying ‘lonely at the top’, even in the flattest of organization structures. There is an ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ pecking order, Upto a point – even as someone’s boss – you are an ‘Us’. At some point your designation, salary and role put you in the bracket of ‘Them’. Now people are noticing what you wear, how you conduct yourself, gossiping about something you said or did. This is all natural – you were doing it not long ago. But.. it takes some getting used to! And some people just never do. Organisational issues He goes on to give the example of Microsoft, which has created a separate status scale for its software engineers. The basic idea being that managers gain promotion as they take on more people and greater responsibility, and software engineers gain in status and pay as they demonstrate brilliance. Well, this should be emulated in just about every profession (the most brilliant writers often make lousy editors because, saddled with admin and production burdens they cease to write - and lose the very passion that brough them into their jobs!) But, we also need to develop leadership capabilities in people as they rise up the ladder. It’s tempting to believe leaders are born not made but poor behaviour and attitude can be corrected. Not always, but since bad bosses affect everything from individual performance to overall morale – one has to try! Toxic subordinates The average person dislikes work and will avoid it he/she can;Therefore, most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organisational objectives; The average person prefers to be directed; to avoid responsibility; is relatively unambitious, and wants security, above all else. In Hindi there is a saying – taali donon haathon se bajti hai. As a boss I would have to say there are also a number of ‘bad’ employees who believe in the following: My current job is not good enough for me. (But I’m still working here till I get something better!)My boss is always out to get me (My performance is never the issue) I am super talented so I am entitled to ___________ Fill in the blank with anything from ‘disregard the boss’ instructions’ to ‘come 2 hours later to work than everyone else’ Jack Welch write about ‘boss haters’ in his book ‘Winning’. These are the people who are cynical about authority and ‘constantly exude low-level negativity towards “the system”… their bosses feel it and return the favour.” ‘Winning’ is replete with advice for people at all rungs of the corporate ladder. For people just starting their careers, a very important tip from Welch: “I would describe the wy woek-life balance as an old fashioned chit system. People with great performance accumulate chits, which can be traded with flexibility. The more chits you have, the greater your opportunity to work where and how you want.” In short, no one is ‘entitled’ to anything – you have to earn the trust and respect of your boss, just as he/ she has to earn yours. Far too many young people joining the workforce today aren’t really recognizing this fundamental principle. Also, if you keep hopping from job to job – because today the environment allows that – you never really accumulate enough of those chits. The generation gap Growing up in post-liberalisation India, amid a buoyant economy, with the India story only getting brighter… India’s Generation …have seen few failures and fewer hardships. Disillusionment sets in fast, and the patience threshold is low. The article quotes the example of a management trainee who came to meet K Ramkumar, HR head of ICICI Bank. Sir, my boss spoke to me in a language which even my father would not use. I felt very bad. Nobody has ever spoken to me like that. I have always done well in my life,” he said. He wanted to quit. His boss had told him, “You are no good. You have to work hard.” Tolerance is in short supply today – and a ‘bad’ boss and a tough one are often mistaken. A bad boss is one who – besides being a taskmaster – is one who diminishes you, does not add value to you. A tough boss is one who may stretch you to the limit. But there is learning and growth in working with that person as well. And of course if you are really lucky – you find a mentor – a boss who actively works to bring out the best in you. Subroto Bagchi, CEO Mindtree, once wrote a tribute to all the bosses he’d worked with who made him what he is today. If someone were to do a ‘great boss’ contest – they just might be surprised.
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(7 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5)
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All the content posted in the 'Business Standard Blogs' section, unless specified otherwise, are made by Business Standard employees. The content posted in 'Business Standard Blogs' does not follow routine internal Business Standard reviews and editorial processes and should be considered only as the views and opinions of the employees and not of Business Standard.
July 17th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
This is a great “boss’spoint of view” for a change….
July 17th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Excellent article.. Every bit sounds true..
Makes me nostolgic of my first assignment..:)
July 19th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
‘With great power comes great responsibility’, was the line which got stuck in my head (and is there still) while watching spiderman.
This goes with the bosses as well. As an employee, the responsibility lies towards work & organisation but bosses are responsible for both the activitives in the org. and the effects of it outside as well. Many of them don’t realise this at all.
If a boss gives freedom and liberty to do whatever without keeping a check on performance than he is in the good books of an employee and vice versa.
There a saying for bosses that wherever you go ‘ALL CROWS ARE BLACK’. But how far its true, should be judged by level of responsibilty and sense of maturity
July 25th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Being boss is difficult for bosses who expect all subordinates to do what he/she wants as if they were machines (even they need a cool-off). Good and effective bosses go for the classic win-win and it works. I have worked under bosses, who were effective, had killer instinct, were tough and were also understanding. I have also worked under bosses who can’t see anything beyond what helps their cause, even if the employee’s mother is in hospital, his wife pregnant or his children ill. At the same time when something happens at the boss’s family, she/he would expect the whole world to come and support them. One more thing about bosses, they earn more, they get more of everything — visibility, approach, travel, perks and so on. But yet they will be unhappy if a subordinate got a bit of credit. I rightly agree that bosses need to be trained to handle leadership but they also need to be told that they can’t be the centre of the universe. I also know of a boss who used to exploit his subordinates so much that if I call that boss as more of a gang-leader from a bollywood flick, it would be an understatement. I know it finally boils down to being human and acting like one. Since office environment is anything but ‘fully fair’, it would be best to do the selection of a candidate, giving him or her clear picture of the environment and at the same making an honest assessment whether that is the subordinate who would suit the offer. In one of the final interviews in a well-known company, my prospective boss, head of marketing, asked me whether I can work 7 days a week consistently, I told him not regularly. He said he appreciated that but he needed someone who could be his shadow. I declined respectfully and we both left satisifed. I have transitioned from a non-executive to a boss to a matrix team person to a consultant and I have seen that it finally comes down to understanding on the part of the boss and right person for a given task in the case of subordinates. Bosses have the responsibility to create environment and command rather than demand respect and that comes from understanding what ticks each subordinate. One can routinely check and bad bosses won’t have employees sticking with them long provided of course the division/company doesn’t close down before that.
July 25th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
The Boss is bad when he starts playing God Himself !
The Boss is worse when he plays a Devil !!
I don’t think, a Boss ever plays a Normal Human !!!
July 25th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
A LADY BOSS —- BETTER OR WORSE ?
A woman has been an enigma always for every generation. All over the world and in almost all fields, the number of female bosses is on the rise !
The male dominated society at large, is more threatened than encouraged.
Not surprisingly, the Lady Bosses are doing much better than thier male counterparts in most of the fields !
Any takers?
August 6th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
‘How bad is your boss?’ is one question that irritates at the same time integrate everyone in an organization excepting the top-most boss or the owner. Irritates because he is ‘too good for nothing’ or ‘nasty psychopath like Hari Sadoo’. Integrates because of the obvious reason – ‘we are in the same boat, I am rating you bad as my boss rated me worst.’
To be respected with the dignity of a human being is the birthright of a subordinate. The subordinates should be encouraged to propose solution when they sense problems. Debates are healthy as long as it addresses the solution. But the cause of most discontent stems from the debates that transform into argument or snubbing the subordinates with the cudgel of ‘Damn with your question - just do what I say’. It could be at the other end too, bickering at the boss by a techno savvy subordinate wearing a funny look blended with ‘my foot’ attitude is not uncommon. All because he has number of jobs in the market. He may enjoy the blessings of ‘HR.com’, but a true professional is an ‘Arjuna’ who has eyes on correct deliverables on time and he owns it to deliver with his group without fail during his term of employment.
Nevertheless, mistakes are not uncommon in business. It is the mistake in the architecture of steam engine, first aircraft because of which the world envisaged so many accidents. Thanks to those mistakes we are able to improve, move faster than getting trapped into the unending loop of correcting those mistakes shelving the first in the coffin of history. The steam engine would never have been on the rails, the aircraft would never have been in the sky, had there been bad boss to rip up the subordinate for their mistakes of design. Good boss sees the honesty of purpose, attitude of the person. A bad boss knows nothing beyond his ego and vested interest.
I do not know if there is any company in the world that practices 360 degree review of an employee. Theoretically, the concept being very popular but if practiced across all organizations, would dispel much of hue and cry on ‘bad bosses. In fact, had it been in place, the scandals, IR problems, many companies had been facing earlier, could have been averted.
From Relationship Marketing point of view, only companies having satisfied employees can have a satisfied customer leading to long term business relationship. Furthermore,different dimensions of relationship lead to elevated corporate image, namely:
• Relationship with Investors
• Relationship with Clients
• Relationship with Employees
• Relationship with Partners
• Relationship with Government
• Relationship with Media
• Relationship with Society
• Relationship with International Community
It is the employee-employer relationship that triggers accordingly the other relationships. Employee and employer relationship is driven by all the bosses of the organization leading to organization wide maximum employee satisfaction. It is important that HR is adequately empowered to monitor the boss-subordinate relationship. By subordinates, it does not mean just trainees or junior managers; it covers the entire team led by the CEO. Leadership is an art and culture which percolates from the top. All reputed organizations are known more by its leaders than the products. And these bosses are not lonely because they move taking the people along. They are not stressed, because they empower to share the load. They are also mentors to their subordinates, inborn good human beings and good bosses too.
October 12th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I think we must take note of the survey that attributes to biggest factor in corporate attrition being the Boss.
They compel or drive people to leave,not the Co or its health or environment.
I think Cos must adopty a barometer where the Boss sits down with is team every 6 months and they all review their performances,workstyles and problems.There must be a sense of openness ,transparency about ones workings,about the Co and its furture goals.
This would help clarify workings and many misgivings that get carried
October 17th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
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December 26th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Good Article …