Are You a Bad Boss?
None of us thinks we’re a bad boss. If you think about it, however, we all fall along a bell-shaped curve where some of us are good, some average, and some..well, you know.
Please tune in this week as Wayne delivers some direct feedback from a recent Boot Camp class and analyzes the six top “bad boss” qualities as well as the top nine “good boss” ones.
Please give us the benefit of your think in the comments section below.
And, don’t forget about our next Contractor Business Boot Camp class scheduled for Oct 15-16 in Raleigh, NC. Please contact Charlotte at ckopp@familybusinessinstitute.com to learn more about the program.
Hello. This is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. Thanks for tuning in as always, pay attention to bootcamp
there's an announcement down below. So, take a look there.
This week I want to ask a simple question. Are you a bad boss? And why is this important? Well, come on, who wants to
be a bad boss? The problem with us as bosses is so often in our companies, we don't get a lot of feedback. As the senior
leader, you probably get less feedback from the newest person than the newest person on your team who gets at least
an annual review.
For many of the people watching this blog, you don't get any form of review from anybody. So, you just kind of have to
assume you're doing a good job. I have a couple thoughts on that a little bit later, but we had a Boot Camp exercise back
in February 2020. And also, I got a little information from an article from Bamboo, from March 2019. Mostly from Boot
Camp, we identified about nine characteristics that make for a good boss and six characteristics that make for a bad boss.
So, let's go down. Let's start with bad. Okay, six bad characteristics first. All right.
The first was that the boss is negative. Doesn't present a compelling, optimistic vision for how today is going to go, how
this year is going to go, et cetera. The boss doesn't give positive praise. The way one of our former consultants used to say
it is there's a lot of butt kicking kind of feedback, but there's not a lot of pat on the back, you did a great job kind of
feedback. And butt kicking those of us my age, we remember Vince Lombardi and Vince Lombardi was famous for chewing
his players out and never giving the praise because by gosh when they did something praiseworthy, that's what they were
supposed to do.
Today, the Vince Lombardi method doesn't work so well. People very much want that pat on the back that you did a great
job. And if you're constantly, chewing butts, that that doesn't get it. Micromanaging, that was the number one negative
in our bootcamp feedback, people that micromanage. And I know that would drive me berserk. Hopefully you're not doing
that.
Little to no feedback. So, no reviews, no butt kicking but no positive pat on the back either, just nothing. Just kind of, how
am I doing? There's no metric for how I'm doing, or can I advance my career or anything else. A lack of accountability, and
it goes two ways. If you're not holding me accountable and nobody's holding you accountable, it's a two-way street. And
then the second part of it is, doesn't hold other people accountable. And that is a common problem among our clients.
They have people on the team that really are not pulling their weight. And everybody knows really on analysis who those
people are, but nobody's really holding them accountable, which makes the other productive people on the team have to
work harder. So those are the six bad characteristics.
What are the nine good characteristics? Some of you can probably imagine. The boss is disciplined in his personal habits
or her personal habits. The boss is a planner, so we know what to expect this week, this month, this year. We have clear
goals and mileposts that we can all see. So, upon achievement, we know we're there we know we're making process. The
boss is a concise communicator. I think maybe this gets at the micromanaging thing. So many of us are not concise in our
communication. I'm trying to be concise in this blog, but just get to the point. It seems to be with the bootcamp folks we're
getting it. Just get to the point, be straight, be direct, let me know what I need to do and by gosh, I'll go out and do it.
Listens. The boss listens. The boss is willing to accept constructive criticism. Perhaps listen to new ideas about how to get
things done. The boss has a good clear vision that we can all share, and the boss makes quick decisions. Again, on this list,
accountability, the boss is accountable to us and the boss holds other people accountable. So, you can see so many of
these things are two sides of the same coin.
Bamboo says that the number one most hated behavior of bad bosses is when they take credit for the work of other
people. They don't give credit where credit is due. Our bootcamp folks didn't mention that, and I personally don't see that,
that much, but it's out there. So, think about that as well.
Now, how do you know if you're a bad boss? What are the tools that you might use to find out? If you have an inkling that
maybe you're not quite where you want to be as a leader, well, first you can ask your people. How am I doing? How am I
doing it? What would you like to see more of, what would you like to see less of? You can ask for direct blunt feedback.
That's a part of that accountability piece.
The best tool for senior leaders in businesses is the 360-degree evaluation. They're not always fun. I can tell you personally,
they're not always fun. There are some things ... You know, we all have blind spots. We all probably overestimate what
we can do over here and maybe underestimate what we can do over there. So, getting a 360 from time to time, once
every two or three years is probably a good thing to help you coach yourself, maybe have an outside coach to be a better
boss and a better leader in your closely held company.
This is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute, sure would like to have your feedback.
