Ten ways to be a kick-ass boss

English: Big Boss Man (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having been an underling much of my life, I’ve seen the flip side of this deal.

My first boss, at The Globe and Mail, in my mid-20s, set the bar impossibly high for all future bosses. I still miss him!

What did I love about my Best Boss Ever?

— He scared the shit out of me by giving me assignments so huge and so unfamiliar I used to go home and sit in the bathtub and cry from terror. The rational part of my brain said, “No, you ninny. He thinks you’re talented and he’s giving you a fantastic chance to prove it. Go do it!”

— He was willing to listen to my ideas, and give me opportunities I had no right to, like sending me to the Winnipeg Jets’ training camp after I told him I knew nothing about hockey. Then asking me to profile the owner of the Maple Leafs.

The original Winnipeg Jets logo in the WHA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

– He told me when I needed to pick up my game.

— He told me I was too impatient and fussy and needed to stay put and be consistently excellent for a while doing one thing.

– He backed me to the hilt when one of my stories caused huge international furor. I was terrified I’d be fired. He loved the publicity for my work and our paper.

— When I decided to quit and go to another paper, he accepted my invitation to lunch — which cost me about $50 or so in 1986 — and told me I was welcome to return any time. His acceptance of my resignation letter was typically kind and elegant.

– I still have my hand-written attaboy note from him on one of my front-page stories: “Magnificent.” That one word was high praise in an industry that gives very little of it. I treasure it to this day.

Big Boss (Metal Gear) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some tips for those in the boss’ chair:

Be fair

This is a big one. Workers can be whiny but they will, for sure, compare notes on how they’re being managed. Does everyone else really expect their emails returned at 3 a.m.? (And is this really how you think people should live?) Yes, you’re under ridiculous pressure to get results and productivity but try to remember that your staff are not merely units of labor. They’re people.

Be clear

People often mis-hear or don’t listen well or forget or are overwhelmed.  Make sure your staff knows exactly what you want. Better than having them flail, fearfully, in the dark. I once worked for a major newspaper whose macho motto was “Sink or swim.”

Puhleeze.

Say thank-you

This is huge. I try to make a point of thanking my assistants with every email and phone call. Yes, you’re paying them. They’re not robots. When I worked retail for a no-commission $11/hour, my feet burning after every shift, it made a surprisingly big difference when our manager, every night at closing, said “Thank you.” Do it often.

Pay properly

This is an area of some debate, clearly. I’ve learned the hard way that paying my part-time assistants, all of whom are college grads, $10/hour is not enough. I now pay my current assistant $15/hour, more than I prefer, worth it. In an era of $4/gallon gasoline, any boss who keeps cheaping out will find the result is lazy, unmotivated staff, people who quit the minute they can and an unspoken power struggle that slows everyone down.

I’m in the middle of profiling a huge company who’s legendary for paying badly — when half your reviews on glassdoor say you’re cheaper than all your competitors, listen up!

Make clear how you prefer to handle communication

We all have preferences. I prefer written communication — that way I can always see what I said and what was answered. Don’t fume or yell because your staff aren’t doing what you want. Communicate clearly what you expect.

Don’t abuse people’s time

This is huge. Just because you have a title or office or more salary or experience or education doesn’t justify being abusive. There are always going to be times when everyone has to work later or longer — including you! But if this is a constant, you’re doing something wrong. Don’t demand face time just because you can.

Don’t bully

I’ve been on the receiving end of this far too many times. It’s toxic and a total waste of resources. I once worked in an office — no exaggeration — a trade publisher, whose editor in chief shouted curses across the room at everyone, snarled inches from my face and sniped constantly at everyone. One of my co-workers told me she had been on anti-depressants for years just to be able to stand working there; I quit after six weeks there to go freelance. This includes yelling, sneering, eye-rolling or the silent treatment. People can document, and some will sue for, a hostile work environment.

Back your people up!

This is essential. We all work for our managers as much as we choose to work for a company or organization and our primary loyalty is to our boss and his/her boss(es.) Treat your staff with as much loyalty, resources, training and moral support as you can muster. Protect them whenever possible from toxicity that can lower morale.

Praise as often as you can

We’re all human. We need to celebrated when we’re succeeding, not only spoken to when we disappoint or fail.

Correct or criticize only in private

Never dress someone down publicly. It’s rude, humiliating and unnecessary. Unless your entire corporate culture is equally brutal, managers who do this lose respect from everyone in earshot and are sure to lose talented staff as soon as they can find new employment.

Bonus:

Be human!

The managers I will walk through fire for — I did a month on crutches in a Quebec winter covering an election campaign en francais for my first boss — show us they’re actually human beings. They laugh, share a joke, ask how our sweetie or dog or Mom or marathon training is doing. They have the self-confidence to reveal some of their weaknesses or vulnerabilities so we don’t feel Totally Intimidated.

What have I left out?

Related articles

• Top 6 Reasons Why People Hate Their Bosses (psychologytoday.com)
• 5 Tips for Surviving an Unfair Boss (bestofmesh.com)
• How to Get Along With a Dreadful Boss (money.usnews.com)
• 3 Things to Never Tell Your Boss (loosenyourwhitecollar.com)

Performance Reviews? Gen Y Craves Them — Not The Rest Of Us

Image by rochelle, et. al. via Flickr

Who actually likes performance reviews?

Gen Y, turns out:

Ms. Reder agrees that employees are usually thirsty for feedback. She has observed that those new to the work force want it most.

“One thing that’s very consistent when we look at generation Y is that they are constantly looking for feedback,” she says. “They want training and development, and performance reviews facilitate that. Employers need to understand this is a need, not a want.”

I’m definitely not Gen Y and have had a formal performance review only twice in my life, both In my $11/hour retail job.

Yup, that’s it. Never at the major daily newspapers where I worked, or the national magazines. Feedback? As if. Mostly snide criticism, sometimes shouted, and, on a few rare occasions, an attaboy from a boss.

In my retail job — the one where I folded T-shirts and swept the floor and earned no commission — their review evaluated 20 categories of behavior and skill, ranking us from a 1 (you suck) to a 5 (you rock.) The highest I got was a 4, once. I knew what I was really good at, and there was no category for it on the form.

I did discover in one of these meetings, and it was valuable feedback, that my managers, most of whom were decades younger than I, found me intimidating and therefore difficult to manage. I told my boss to tell them to boss me as much as they felt necessary. And they did. (Not much, luckily.)

Another manager, at a short-lived start-up, pointed out that I am extremely decisive, a good thing and a useful skill. But that, very true, I don’t suffer fools gladly and won’t tolerate whiners. Not great for someone who, then, was managing younger workers.

But PRs are one-way: “Here’s what we think of you”, typically with little to no interest in hearing that — perhaps — the way you’re behaving at work, certainly when less than optimal, may also reflect the workstyles and budgets of your employer. I got dinged on one retail review for not paying close enough attention to potential shoplifters; this after the number of associates on the floor was so severely cut back we could barely get our jobs done as it was.

I think many of us try our best, but if your manager, as one of mine did, simply refuses to speak to you, it’s not going to create a terrific work environment.

Some think performance reviews need to be killed, now. From The Wall Street Journal:

This corporate sham is one of the most insidious, most damaging, and yet most ubiquitous of corporate activities. Everybody does it, and almost everyone who’s evaluated hates it. It’s a pretentious, bogus practice that produces absolutely nothing that any thinking executive should call a corporate plus.

And yet few people do anything to kill it. Well, it’s time they did.

Don’t get me wrong: Reviewing performance is good; it should happen every day. But employees need evaluations they can believe, not the fraudulent ones they receive. They need evaluations that are dictated by need, not a date on the calendar. They need evaluations that make them strive to improve, not pretend they are perfect.

Sadly, most managers are oblivious to the havoc they wreak with performance reviews. To some extent, they don’t know any better: This is how performance reviews have been done, and this is how they will be done. Period.

Here’s a simple experiment you can try. Ask yourself: How often have you heard a manager say, “Here is what I believe,” followed by, “Now tell me, what do you think?” and actually mean it? Rarely, I bet.

The performance review is the primary tool for reinforcing this sorry state. Performance reviews instill feelings of being dominated.

Do you give them? Get them? Do you think they’re worth doing?

Have you ever learned something helpful (even positive) from one?

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