The Leaders

Please forgive the angry looking man in the suit photo. I asked the AI to generate a photo of a leader and this is what it gave me. I was about to toss it when I had a thought. “This is how leaders have looked to me most of my career.” But….is this TRULY the face of leadership? It depends on who you are.

To start my professional career, I worked for over a decade for some not so very nice folks. I’ll take my accountability for how I handled things but when it came down to it I was just a number. I didn’t have leaders who said, “you can do it” or “go to that friends wedding” or “if you’re sick stay home.” I had “bosses” who said, “pull over and throw up if you’re sick but your not going home” or “it sucks if you’ve already worked 14 hours but I need you to drive to this customer right now or you’re fired” at 11 pm at night with them two hours away or “if you’re feeling tired just pull over and sleep in your van for about 30 minutes”. I remember one time where during my first marriage, my then wife was a maid of honor for a friends wedding and I had to leave right at 5 pm so I could watch the kid and she could get to the dress store and I remember my boss and corporate yelling at me for two solid hours for leaving the customer only after they had reported more problems at 4:45 pm and how I was supposed to stay and how they would write me up and “put this on my work record”. I had taken a lot of this companies abuse for a very long time and I remember feeling torn between my employer and the needs of my family. I was home 4 days a month, my kids barely saw me and when they did I was tired and broken.

What a LIVELY story. Nothing gets the blood flowing like a dark work tale right? I wish I could say that every job we’ve ever been to has been almost like we weren’t at work. The truth is that many of us have been in situations like this and mostly due to bad leadership. What this experience taught me was that I would never pass that gloom along to someone else. I would be a LEADER, not a BOSS.

So….what’s the difference you ask? The differences can be plain as the nose on your face or super subtle. Now I should state before I continue that I have worked under VERY GOOD LEADERS. It was never all bad all of the time (although at the employer I was just talking about, good leaders were fired quickly). Characteristics of very bad leadership are generally because those people have acquired the style from someone else or have some sort of unresolved trauma they have to hammer others with. Bad leaders are called “bosses”. Why? Because they expect you to follow their commands to the letter word for word with no deviation. When you’re done they’ll take credit for your work. You’ll also know because the team you work with is cranky, disconnected, calling in sick a lot, generally argumentative, quitting so fast that the person you just trained is already quitting too, folks coming in late, using bad language, shouting and screaming, finger pointings in meetings, etc. Why is this? Because the person at the top sets the tone. Bosses are also all about themselves and they’ll use the head of every person on the team as a stepping rung to inch closer to kissing their bosses posterior. A team unwilling to help them reach that elevation is a team worth replacing in a bosses mind.

Then there is the more subtle boss. They are nice to their team and because of that, the team has a little more cohesion. Everyone willing to help each other out to a point but the signs are there. They act more like a parent to you than a professional. You’ll get into a meeting and you’ll be showing something and they’ll cut you off or explain to the team that you are mistaken about something. When you’re bringing concerns to them on a 1 to 1 basis, they are cutting you off telling you that they don’t want to hear that or have that discussion with you. They’ll critique how you talk so they don’t have to listen to a thing you say. They’ll tell you to “stay in your wheelhouse” or “mind your own business.” They care more about how they and their team looks in order to avoid any unnecessary attention either good or bad. You’ll give them feedback on how they lead and they’ll be staring every which way but at you indicating they have no interest in hearing you. If HR is involved they’ll fulfill the requirements of the feedback discussion by making it about you and not about them. Think of the bosses that run these teams like they probably keep their homes. A place for everything and everything in it’s place. Change or re arrangement is bad. There is a certain level of narcissism that comes with folks like this. Their vision is the best vision no matter how much reality changes. Bosses are the knives piecing the hearts of companies and are often part of the reason companies have to re organize in the first place. Organizations set in their ways would never think to pull the knife out. It’s comfy right where it is because it was pushed in slowly.

In my job hunts and learning more about companies, it looks to me like bosses are becoming a dying breed. Why? Because the business can’t move forward with them around. Companies need leaders. What is a leader? Generally they’re cool headed, down to earth human beings with a wide open door policy. They’re also coaches and the best coaches are upbeat, positive, encouraging and put lots of trust in their teams. What’s important to remember is that they also SET THE RIGHT TONE. Remember how I pointed out the really bad boss with the fractured team dynamic? The exact opposite occurs when a leader is in charge. The tone is set because the leader is one of the team often down in the dirt working with anyone and everyone to find a solution to a challenge or bring ideas to improving upon something. Everyone on the team wants to be there. Shouting is replaced with laughter and conversation. Hiring is few and far between because they believe in the leader, they believe in the company and they believe in growth because the leader got them excited about it. Leaders pass credit onto their teams, throw up the umbrella when adversity hails down from the very top and takes the hits for the mistakes of their team. Leaders are guides. They’re out front. They’re the light in uncertainty and the navigators that don’t go around challenges, but tackle them head on. Leaders never use the word “you” unless they’re coaching or praising one person and they use “we” no matter who messes up. People who reach a point of performance improvement are met with, “we’re going to get you back on track” and “I’ll be right here with you.” Leaders do have to coach the whole team but if they do it right from the start, the likelihood of someone on a performance improvement plan is very low. But the most important thing that comes from a leader is humanity and humility. If someones family member passes it’s not, “we’re too busy”. It’s “we’ll manage”. The word “thank you” is commonplace. A birthday has a card passed around. A sickness is met with “we’re thinking of you”. A good leader will nag you to use some of your PTO to recharge. I once told a hard working team member of mine that I needed him at his best and so I told him he needed to take a day off soon, sit in the sun, have a few beers and spend time with his family. Leaders also recognize that a good employee is one fueled by their personal lives. Treating a team like human beings isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s beneficial for COMPANY GROWTH. Happy employees push the journey forward BECAUSE THEY WANT TO.

So what can companies standing still do RIGHT NOW? The first instinct shouldn’t be to look at the company wallet. Instead of planning layoffs, they can kill two birds with one stone in re evaluating the people they have in charge and speaking to the teams they lead. Generally, if they have a bad boss, the complaints have been rolling in for a while and the team hasn’t made the progress it needs. If they have that other kind of boss, its important to ask the team if they feel if things are the same, or if change and adaptability is encouraged. It’s time to put the gloves on and evaluate the highest paid first. It doesn’t matter what their essential function is at the highest level. No matter how thick of a structural cable they are, if they’re not leading, its time to remove or replace the cable and if the company has to dangle for a little bit, so be it. It will stay afloat a little bit longer because the thorn has been effectively removed and maybe the dangle is something the company proudly adapts. Often times, bosses wear out their usefulness. They are being paid for a result. They aren’t being paid to look like the hood ornament on an expensive car. I stopped applying for a job recently that said, “you can only apply for this job by friending the founder and once he says that you’re a friend, he’ll approve your chance to be considered for employment.” I’d hate to work for someone like that. It says a lot about a company who puts out a public application just to say, “for my closest friends only.” I thought about how I would be treated if I somehow got hired without being that guys friend. What’s more sad than that is the fact that a company was started with someone of that attitude. Doesn’t sound like a leader to me. Companies need to stop acting like it’s just a money problem. Sometimes the money problem and the bad leadership problem go hand in hand. So what kind of leader are you?