If I had a dollar for every person who told me they were frustrated with their boss, I would be a very rich woman. In a decade of career coaching, I have learned that people don't leave jobs, they leave bad bosses.
Good Managers Don't Always Make Good Leaders
In many organizations, managers who are given the responsibility to complete predetermined goals or projects are rewarded for their success with an upgraded role in a leadership position. Many managers fail as leaders because they lack the skills and competencies to develop relationships with their employees and build loyalty with their team. They cannot evoke a compelling image of success by empowering and cultivating the talent of their subordinates because they are classic micro-managers and fail to instill buy-in and accountability.
These folks are not bad people but they are not gifted leaders, which often translates to being a bad boss. If your boss fits this description then you should consider firing your boss and hooking your star to a talented and dynamic leader.
In reality we know this does not mean to literally fire your boss -- although that would be gratifying for some during the most frustrating of bad boss moments. But I do encourage you to begin seriously looking for a new work environment that will empower you with a strong leader who in turn will help you grow your career if your boss is zapping your potential at work.
Find a Great Boss
A really good boss and a great leader can take you upward with them inside or outside of your current organization, if you prove your worth. If you have the trust of the rising star in the company -- keep it and maintain it, for this is your insurance policy. If your current boss is not star material, it's time to look for one that is.
If your boss just doesn't get it and there is no hope of a change in mindset, you need to stealthily devise your exit strategy. Don't ever leave a job unless you have another to go to, especially in this economy. But if your boss is not a good leader and there is no system in your organization that will help change that, then you deserve to be in an environment where you can grow and develop your career.
Even in the most blissful job environment, you should be thinking about your five-year plan and where you see your career going in the future. A great boss will help you on your way but alas, not all of them are so enlightened.
Interview Your Future Boss
The next time you are interviewing for a position make sure you interview your prospective boss thoughtfully. By asking compelling questions about their leadership style you will be able to ascertain if they are going to grow or diminish your talent on the team. I suggest you read a great book by Liz Wiseman before your next interview.
Liz Wiseman, worked at Oracle for 17-plus years and considers herself a genius watcher. She was the VP responsible for the company's global talent development strategy and ran the Oracle Corporate University. Her book: "Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter" teaches valuable lessons for current and aspiring leaders.
During Wiseman's leadership watching and developing experience at Oracle, she discovered that some leaders drain intelligence and the capabilities of the people around them. Their focus on their own intelligence and their narcissistic need to be the smartest person in the room had a diminishing effect on everyone else around them. For them to look smart other people had to look dumb or incompetent and in turn, the Diminishers created a vacuum suck of all the creative energy in a room. Meeting times were doubled and other people's ideas suffocated and died in their presence.
Coping with a Bad Boss
If your boss is not helpful in assessing your strengths, seek outside assistance from a personal Board of Directors that you assemble beyond the walls of your workplace. In reality, we don't always have the support system in-house that we need but this should not stop you from reaching out to others for mentorship and advice. And, it just might help you get to the next mile marker on your personal career journey that includes a position with a great leader as your boss.
While I believe that some leaders are born, most are developed and our current professional marketplace does not place enough emphasis on training effective leaders. This leads to discontent amongst the troops and ultimately low morale and low productivity.
Recognizing the Multipliers
In an ideal world where you land a dream job with a fabulous boss, you would want a Multiplier at the helm. The Multipliers use their intelligence to amplify the capabilities of others on their team. People get smarter and better in their presence and ideas flow freely and challenges are overcome. When these leaders walk into a room the energy level goes up on the team and difficult problems are solved because every team member has a say and is involved.
The Multipliers bring out the intelligence in others by building collective and viral genius in an organization. By extracting people's full capability, Multipliers get twice the resources from people than do the Diminishers.
Wiseman identified five disciplines of Multipliers:
You Deserve a Great Leader
This is a difficult lesson for many of today's unsuccessful leaders who don't have the professional development resources to learn to become Multipliers. Others don't have courageous team members to call them out on being ineffective leaders so they continue to diminish and dysfunctional teams plod along.
If confronting your diminishing leader is not within your comfort zone, or you fear job security, perhaps a mysterious copy of Liz Wiseman's great book in an office mailbox will plant the seed anonymously. As you plan your next career move be sure to consider your future boss's role in your success and happiness in the organization. You deserve a Multiplier!
Caroline Dowd-Higgins authored the book "This Is Not the Career I Ordered" and maintains the career reinvention blog of the same name (www.carolinedowdhiggins.com) She is also the Director of Career & Professional Development at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
Follow Caroline Dowd-Higgins on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CDowdHiggins
Lisa Earle McLeod: Is It Your Job? Or Is It Your Personality?
The Search - Big Money vs. Job Satisfaction - NYTimes.com
U.S. job satisfaction falls to lowest level in 22 years - Jan. 5, 2010
Results of polls on job satisfaction are at odds - washingtonpost.com
How to Handle a Bad Boss - BusinessWeek
One particularly extreme female Diminisher in my experience relives her high school reality through manipulation of her employees. Employees divide into cliques. There are informal "popularity contests" based on which employee sucks up the most. Sucking up for older female employees involves doing the work the boss is too lazy to do, or going to the Diminisher's house to help out with pet-sitting or house-cleaning. A prom king is selected, the male employee the boss finds most attractive (Perhaps resembles Paul McCartney?) Young and attractive female employees can be used as bait to draw in a new prom king.
Am I inventing this particular boss? Nope, I worked for her for two miserable years. And she is still in the very same supervisory position.
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Perfect description of my prior boss - the incompetent egoistical CEO. Tipping point was when he refused to approve the reimbursement for my personal expenses, incurred by his hair-brain idea.
My departure caused my department to suffer losses to the tune of about 2 million a year (from a million dollar/ year profit). The creep left two years after my departure. The next CEO sunk about 3 million dollars for improvements. The next CEO unable to reverse course, closed the department 8 years after my departure.
Sweet scent of success and vindication was when the current CEO (four in 12 years) recently sent me a letter inquiring whether I would like to return to head the new department and to the area, "where you are so much liked."
Yet the take home lesson: The creep did me a great favor for which I am greatful. Failure there was the steping-stone to even greater success. America is great, with lots and lots of opportunities!
Nobody in positions of authority are promoted because they had people skills. Unless you count laying them off and terminations, restructuring, downsizing etc...
I have had both good and bad manager/ "Bosses" but it's akin to comparing how Baboons are promoted while they go about abusing everyone around them. The two just don't merge.
It's who you know or who your doing, skill and harmony driven efforts are not part of the club. In fact if you show any "harmony" generating talent your relegated to a non-Line position probably in a dusty logistics role overseeing 4 Pakistani engineers who don't speak english and when they do ask for "women" on their per diem bills.
The Troops have been expoited beyond human mental spiritual capacity to keep running on the wheel and are now just enduring and waiting their turn to be cut while the company is making HUGE profits and promoting executives who already make base salaries of several hundred thousand.
It's too bizarre to describe the deep immoral feeling The Troops have about whats going on but they dare not speak out for fear of being voted off the island next. Endentured slavery.
Mixing the word "Leadership" and Corporate America in the same sentence makes me vomit in my mouth.
http://www.returntoworkmom.com/
To work for. But they think they are wonderful.