Difficult boss

We always believe that managers who inspire and empower their teams are good bosses. Working with them is fun. They also focus on the development of the team. High performance is expected easily while working with such inspirational leaders. However, working with a difficult manager is always challenging. Generally, you can’t choose your manager. You have to work with the manager who is assigned to you and you can’t complain or change the manager unless you change the job. Changing the job frequently is also not a good sign. Sometimes organizations are good, and your role is super, but the challenge may be the manager. What you do if you get a difficult boss. There are different types of difficult bosses. Perhaps you may not be willing to work with the toxic boss who is political, takes the credit, micromanages or bullying. It is good to be strong with such bosses. 

However difficult bosses are not always bad. We may perceive managers as difficult if they are demanding, result oriented, perfectionist and with a lot of expectations. They are always on your head. So first it is very important to understand the personality of the boss. Ironically, a bad boss can motivate members of a team to bond with each other and provide encouragement and assistance since they know that they won’t be receiving positive attention from their superior. 

One of the facts is that executives get developed while working with the difficult boss also. Of course, your development chances are more when you work with a highly competent and talented boss. But not necessarily, you will always get the inspiring boss. Sometimes you will have those managers in your life. If you find out the silver lining, you can convert the situation into an opportunity for learning. 

Jay A. Conger and Allan H Church have written a book, “The High Potential’s Advantage.” These two gentlemen have written this book after a lot of research of high potentials who are in leadership positions. This book mentions one of the traits of high potential is “Situation Sensing: means observing and responding to the task priorities, work styles, habits and behaviours that your boss values most.” In the case of a difficult boss, it is tricky. If the values of the boss don't match then it is a big conflict. However, it is good to identify the traits and behaviours of a difficult boss and decide the strategy to deal with. If you think that the value system, code of conduct and business principles are compromised, then you can take the appropriate call to escalate it at appropriate forums including whistle-blower. If your boss is just difficult because of his strong work habits, his behaviour is aggressive and certain traits are different than yours or inspirational boss to whom you role model, then it is good to have the discussion and learn from him. He may have his own perspective, he may not be aware, he may lack insight and you can help him to understand that.  

While dealing with a difficult boss, you get the opportunity to stretch yourself. You may learn:

• Understanding human beings. You may get a different insight of the personality. 
• Learning to deal with difficult people,
• Communication skills while dealing with such people,
• Conflict management as conflicts might be common,
• Understanding the socio-political dimensions of the team and organization,

In the career you will not get only amiable peers, team and bosses. Sometimes you will have challenges and wise people learn to deal with that. It is always good to find the silver lining and adapt to the management style suitable to the difficult boss.

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle, Vitality in Human Resource: Adding human dimensions in HR processes

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)     

Fluidity in leadership

Most of the times, we have some assumptions about leadership. This is based on our understanding and observations. We follow somebody in our life, and we assume that the person to whom we are following has great leadership style. We get inspired by their traits; however, we ignore some detrimental traits. They may have some great leadership traits but there may be fluidity in few values. There are some fall out stories in Indian and international corporate world.   

Over a period, I realized that leadership is about insight and character of the person. Leaders are also human beings but then as a leader they have more responsibilities to have the right insight. They need to understand that they are observed by the people. People who are projected great leaders in media are not necessarily a great leader. They may be great business managers. Most of the times, leaders ignore the insight about self and insight about others. I have observed few flaws in managers which restricts them to be role model leaders.

Bringing “own” people: Few managers, when take the charge of the business, try to bring “their” own people. Identifying the right talent and bringing them in the organization is always good. And it is the job of leadership. But sometimes managers have their own biases and they try to bring their people to whom they are comfortable with. It is very sad that they don’t think that internal people have capabilities without doing any assessment. Working with the existing team which you have got and getting the results from them is the top leadership trait.  

Allowing short circuits in decision making: Organizations have their own governance model. While working in such governance models, it is crucial to follow the proper system while making decisions. But sometimes, such governance structure is bypassed. If somebody doesn't like the way of working and decisions taken, such decisions are reverse favourably only to accommodate somebody. I think such behaviour is utter nonsense. Managers forget that their such behaviour is observed by all people. It has an adverse impact on the culture.    

If you are a leader, just get insight and check that you are doing the right things. Creating the culture is the accountability of top management and it starts with the leaders. If as a leader you are not doing right, your employees will follow you. Don’t blame them.   

Are you tough?

“You should be tough, ruthless and very assertive when you are in business. If managers are not tough, then their subordinate will not be tough and it is very difficult to sustain in the competitive world.” So-called tough manager was preaching the junior managers in the meeting. He then declared that there would be one sharing session where all managers would share their experiences on how they were tough in their personal life. It was year 2008. The indications of slow down were prominent. The business was down. All new projects and businesses were not doing well. The reasons for the failure were different, but the slowdown was the opportunity to conceal their failure.

“You should be empathetic with people.” Was his another preaching topic. He read it somewhere about empathy and started to preach people. If you are empathetic, you can achieve desired results. However he was literally spoiling the career of good employees by doing experiments about their profiles.

“There is a clause of termination in appointment letter, one month notice period. Ask employees to resign without any severance packages. You do not have any obligations. You should be empathetic; still you should be tough and ruthless.” He ordered in another meeting.  

Empathy means understanding other’s feeling, putting yourself in their shoes and deciding your strategy to deal with them.  Excellent fundamental! I personally use this tactic while dealing with different people.

CEO of the company decided to close one office at one location. So- called tough and empathetic manager was given the responsibility of this project. But this whole project was handled very unprofessionally where high profile and critical talent were treated like a contract and casual workmen. They started agitation against the management. The matter was referred to media and political leaders including ministers. Adverse reports and comments spoiled the reputation of the company.  CEO had to take the control of the situation to salvage where management had to agree to pay them heavy severance package.  

So-called empathic and tough manager failed in his strategies. He actually did not know the real meaning of empathy. He tried to be tough; but at wrong situation with wrong people.

After some days, management decided to be tough with him without being empathetic.

Being tough does not mean you miss the human dimension. Good companies focus log term goals. The hiring of talent is supposed to be for achieving long term goals. Good companies touch the talent cost at last when all the resorts fail; however bad companies focus cost reduction by reducing the talent at first site. You can be tough with situation. You also can be tough with people but before that you also need to understand the consequences and your capability to handle the consequences.  

Boss, tell me what do you expect from me and be clear always.

Dilip Mate is an old employee working in IT department for last 15 years in the company. He started his career as a trainee in IT department and grown as IT head of one location. His responsibilities include IT support to all vertical of the company. The company is largest regional media company with newspapers, television, web, magazines etc. Dilip has seen almost 12-14 different bosses in his 15 years of career and surprisingly he managed to work with all bosses. Definitely few bosses were nuts and were there due to their loyalty with the owners. Their only qualification was they were in good books of the directors.

Dilip is straight forwards and is not at all political and diplomatic.

“So Dilip, how you manage these different bosses?” once I asked him.

“Oh, it is clear, working 15 years in one department and in same organization, I gained enough knowledge about the organization and working style of the people.”

“So what exactly you do.”

“When any new boss comes here, I am the first person going in his cabin and asking clear expectation from him.”

“What exactly you do?”

“I go and tell, Sir I am working here for 15 years and worked with different superiors with different personalities. I don’t know your management style. But let me know clearly how I should report you? Do you expect me to come your cabin every morning and evening to report about the work? You style may be either democratic, autocratic or mix of both, but it is always better to clarify everything now”

“What is the reaction of boss?”

“He surprises; perhaps I am the only person to ask such stupid questions. But after sometimes he comes out from the shock.” He told, “Bosses have unique expectations from their subordinates and if boss does not understand, then we should go to them ask them what are their priorities?”

“This is too much; bosses are bosses and they have the authority.”

“Yes, but they should clarify the expectations from their reportees.”

“Agreed, but always it is not possible.” As the boss of somebody I told him.

“Most of the time, they can be unreasonable, can expect everything, can give very little space for decisions. Hence as a subordinate, I go to them and clarify everything. It helps me perform better. Professionals like you may not like my style. But I enjoy this.” He smiled.

I could not comment on his response. What do you think?

Good boss, bad boss

I worked with different bosses in my career, good, bad, professional and unprofessional. Some bosses were very good and exhibited themselves as role models. Some bosses were terrific and I always surprised, why they were bosses? Who made them bosses?

There is a saying, “You can’t choose your father, but you can choose your father- in -law.” Like this, you can’t choose your boss also. Even you can’t also choose your subordinate sometimes. (If they are not doing well as per your expectations, then you have the choice to make their life miserable and find the replacement.)

I learned a lot from professional bosses. They exhibited real qualities of leader and they proved it in their professional lives. I also learned from unprofessional bosses that how the boss should not be. Good or bad, but all contributed a lot in my professional life.

There were bosses who always were speaking about the professionalism, but their behaviour was totally unprofessional. One of my bosses was TISS alumni, expert HR professional, but was very poor in interpersonal skills. He was treating subordinates as slaves. His day started with shouting on the people in office like on street. Not only on juniors but on seniors including his peers. Due to which he had high blood pressure. His kidneys failed. He was seriously ill due to his habits.

Another boss, (I never accepted him as a boss though) was very insecure in the organization. He was working in the organization for 20 years. His attitude was purely head clerk attitude. Typical example of the manager, mentioned by Sharu Rangnekar in his book “In the wonderland of Indian Managers”. He made a mess by putting his people, cheerleaders, on critical positions.

Ultimately organization got the major setback. Management decided to keep him aside and he was to force to take early retirement. I heard that when he was out of the organization, people in the organization celebrated his exit.

Professionalism is always a subjective term. For one person the definition of professionalism is different, however another person can perceive the professionalism differently. Good bosses understand the basics of professionalism. Nobody is perfect in this world. Shouting on subordinate is not unprofessional according to the boss, but if subordinate asks valid reasons, it is not professional for him. Paying dirty politics is not unprofessional for the boss, but if subordinate express his frustration, it is unprofessional according to the boss.

There is learning from good bosses, how we should be and also from bad bosses how we should not be.

Lot of material is available on how the boss should be. Hence I am putting some qualities of bad boss.

Some qualities of bad boss:

1)Skipping the managers and calling managers’ subordinates very frequently creating suspicious environment.
2)Creating the perception among the employees that management has given them unlimited powers. If authority is giving abusing the same.
3)Encouraging the cheerleaders.
4)Keeping the distance from employees and behaving as the king in the organization.
5)Expecting from the employees to call him frequently and communicate everything.
6)Encouraging backbiting.
7)Creating the fear among the employees about top management and not allowing the employees to have the access to them.
8)Creating the image that “I am the only person in the organization who can make your life easy.”
9)Creating rigid policies, rules and regulations so that there is very less scope for the creativity.
10)Encouraging bureaucracy.
11)Making favours. Deviating policies for specific people. Discriminating. Using the word case to case, (actually means face to face).
12)Less focus on talent and recruiting average people so that they can not challenge him in future.
13)Creating the policies in such a way that he gets all the benefits from company. Stay in five star hotel, using company car and driver, flying by business class and asking employees to follow cost cutting measures.
14)Using the word “I” and never giving the due credit to other people.
15)If somebody goes with good idea, then saying, “you should first study the history of organization; your idea can not work here.”
16)Spoiling the career of employees, sometimes forcing the exit of good talent by playing dirty tricks.
17)Focusing more on papers and not on results.
18)And many more. Please add your list how the boss should not be…..

Sometimes later, we will discuss about good bosses because I have enough to tell about them.