The Measure of a Boss

A former co-worker and very good friend texted me last month to say she is leaving the job where she and I had worked together for several years as team leaders and which I left nearly nine years ago.  It came as a real shock to me not only because of her longevity there and my expectation that she’d retire from there, but because of what I thought was her commitment to the job and the mission of the employer, a nonprofit medical firm.  She personifies that mission and has a very real and personal stake in its success.  So why leave now?

 

 

A bad boss.

 

 

Does that surprise anyone?  That, in fact, was the main reason I left the company, the loser of a boss that took the reins of the department in which I worked.  My friend was able to outlast that boss, as well as a couple of successors.  But the newest director was another story.  She said she gave him a year to see how it went, but he failed.  (That is, he failed her test of his leadership.  The company still has him onboard and probably thinks he’s doing a great job.) She confirmed what I guessed already: he lacked good interpersonal skills, had an oversized ego, micromanaged his employees, and killed morale with his focus on everything but the real mission, all while collecting a nice six-figure salary.

 

 

What’s wrong with bosses these days?  They come out of business schools with no “soft” skills, no ability to communicate effectively.  They know the business (I’m giving many of them the benefit of the doubt on that one) but don’t know how to talk to people, let alone effectively manage them to inspire the best work and build loyalty.  They lack humility.

 

 

Now the Wall Street Journal reports that companies are shopping for leaders who have that elusive quality, humility.  Why?  Let me take a few quotes from the WSJ article, “The Best Bosses are Humble Bosses”.

 

 

“Humility is a core quality of leaders who inspire close teamwork, rapid learning and high performance in their teams.”

 

 

“Among employees, it’s [humility] linked to lower turnover and absenteeism.”

 

 

“Most of the thinking suggests leaders should be charismatic, attention-seeking and persuasive….Yet such leaders tend to ruin their companies because they take on more than they can handle, are overconfident and don’t listen to feedback from others.”

 

 

“[Humility] predicts ethical behavior and longer tenure on the job.”

 

 

Here’s a link to the article.  A good read.

 

 

Of course, now that corporate America is on to humility as a desirable trait, you just know they are going to come up with a training program to teach it and assessment tools to measure it; and it’s going to ruin the whole thing.  And when those bosses-in-training graduate humility class will they get a certificate that declares them humble?  Funny thing about humility.  As soon as you think you've got it, you've lost it.  Behavior learned in a classroom by an adult is less likely to be motivated from the heart; and humility—to be genuine—needs to start there, accompanied by a respect for others.  In shorthand we might just call it the Golden Rule.  How does your boss measure up?  How do YOU measure up?

Until next time,

Roger

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Proverbs 11:2 NIV®*

*Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission.  All rights reserved worldwide