Posted by denised in In this week’s installment of Managing the Meanies, Buck tackles the seeming dual personalities of bosses. A nice guy after work but a real tyrant in the office. Well, Buck’s not buying it…
Certainly you’ve had a boss who when at work was a monster, an abusive tyrant like some of the
characters that I have described here, but when outside of the workplace in a social setting, seemed to be a decent, almost tolerable human being. The change between work and social setting was so remarkable that people actually commented that the boss wasn’t so bad after all, or at least when away from the office. Well, I don’t buy that.
Surely you’ve heard the popular behavioral estimate that the way people treat wait staff in a restaurant is a glimpse as to who they really are. Surely the way people are at work, when exposed to all of life’s stresses, challenges and human interactions, is indeed a full life-size portrait as to who they truly are. No concealments here, you’re looking right into them.
A valuable lesson
One of the most valuable lessons I learned years ago from some of my first interactions with demoralizing bully-bosses, whether as an observer or as a recipient, was just how not to treat people. True, years of selling paper and as such selling myself, has fine-tuned my persuasiveness. After all, you can’t successfully sell paper by being abrasive, secretive and abusive. You can’t persuade the customer to buy from you after you have humiliated her, held back critical information and declined to answer her questions.
Similarly, companies cannot realize a truly committed and brilliant performance from their most valuable asset, their people, if their people are languishing, their talent and creativity suppressed, under a bully boss. And despite all that has been written about leadership, the self-help, motivational management stuff (the book store management sections are full of new inspirational works!) we’re still led by poor managers. Like bad parenting, which can mess up your kids for life, bad bossing can similarly create a whole generation of poor leaders – managers who haven’t a clue as to how to motivate their people.
Next Tuesday: The conclusion of Buck Hamilton’s Managing the Meanies series.
Editor’s note: Buck Hamilton is a sales and marketing executive who’s spent over thirty years working in the paper distribution business. He’s a prolific writer who’s presently working on a book which narrates the stories of sixteen Vietnam War veterans. You can read his weekly series “Managing the Meanies: A Survival Guide” every Tuesday here on Really Bad Boss.
