The Boss

I’m sorry but I have to digress this week with a rant, of sorts…

I have been reading way too much on LinkedIn. I’ve been focused on the posts that hail their subject as “leadership.” Most of it is banal and inane. They toss around meaningless phrases like “servant leadership,” “empowerment,” and “emotional intelligence.” Leadership isn’t some esoteric, nebulous, or complicated idea, it’s a practical day-to-day function. If I’m the right guard on the football team, I don’t have the perspective, nor typically the desire, to have a lot of say in play calling. I need the quarterback to lead the team, tell me the next play, and let me figure out how I’ll execute my blocking assignment. It’s not rocket science!

My annoyed face.

Servant or slave?

We need a boss for a great many day-to-day functions. Let’s take keeping discipline in the group, for example. Many people have a difficult time getting to work, getting to work on time, and staying a full 8 hours. It’s reality and someone has to be appointed to ride herd. That’s the boss’s job and it’s not fun. Maybe as a servant leader, I should just let them stay home and do their work for them (sarcasm for those who missed it). Yeah, I’m in a mood.

Emotional wreck.

Emotions aren’t part of the job, sorry. Objective, principled, perceptive, hardworking, fair, and professional are adjectives I want to use in describing a leader but emotional is not. Emotional intelligence is an oxymoron at best and an insipid form of manipulation at worse. Your emotions shouldn’t be involved with your work, unless you’re an artist. You don’t discipline out of anger, you discipline because there’s been a violation of standards. You don’t give someone high marks on their performance review because you like them (or are afraid of them), you do it because their performance merited the high marks. Your workers don’t care how you “feel,” they want to know what you think, objectively not emotionally. Emotional people are manipulative and easily manipulated.

Empower this...

Most organizations don’t over staff, so most workers have their hands full with their own workload. This means that they don’t have the time to do the boss’s job on top of their own. They want and need someone in the quarterback position to provide direction and make decisions. If you’re fair and objective you’ll get plenty of feedback on process improvement from your team. You won’t need to focus on empowering anybody, it is a naturally occurring function in human nature. Your team relies on you as boss to ensure everyone is holding up their end. They don’t have the time or resources to check on everyone else. Normally, people don’t want the job of cracking the whip because they don’t relish the idea of conflict. If they do like it, steer clear of putting them in charge of other humans.

You’re here to earn your pay.

There is a lot to know about leadership because it involves running a team. The personality variables that go into a group of people have to be handled. The common ground is the first place you begin and that’s always “Why are we all here?” People don’t need to be manipulated to make them work together and produce, they need guidance to understand their job. They need prodding when they don’t feel like working. They need the necessary resources to do their job. They don’t want to worry about the budget, staffing, or other managerial tedium. Once roles are defined and everyone is situated, then you can begin the process of tweaking your leadership practices.

It’s just a job, not knighthood

The boss function is a task like all the rest. The difference is how it has a greater impact on the individual team members. That also makes it a higher profile position for which, hopefully, comes higher pay. The greater impact means greater responsibility. Leadership training, knowledge, and application are necessary to handle this increased responsibility with greater efficiency. When the boss is a leader, a required piece of the team is filled properly. You don’t have a team with a boss appointed over them as though the position was outside the team somehow. That‘s not how teams function. As the boss, you are part of the team and have a role to play. A role that everyone in the team depends on you to play properly.

...and how is that implemented?

The incessant babble about charisma, change management, and leading from behind are all a lot of nonsense aimed at changing people’s conduct or perceptions without the principled base on which to establish good habits and practices. I can only imagine the frustration involved in trying these various “techniques” if they’re not part of your personality, training, and team dynamic. The whole workforce is not comprised of a group of highly trained, college educated, office professionals with nothing better to do than mind the boss’s business. Autocratic leadership may be necessary for your team. That being said, that doesn’t lessen the requirement to know and apply basic leadership principles to include objectivity, fairness, and professionalism (not the least part of which is ethics).

Soooooo, what’s my point?

I’m just annoyed really, that’s all. People have a thing about preaching some high sounding tripe and getting accolades for it. I get frustrated because the emperor looks naked to me. Every boss or leader I encounter, with rare exceptions, are the same old sixes and sevens in the trenches. People don’t respect you for the new and innovative approaches you use to get them to do their work. People respect you for being consistent, objective, fair...are you seeing a trend? Quit trying to come up with a plan to change the world before you’ve figured out how to succeed in its current orbit. As many a successful football coach can tell you, you gotta focus on the fundamentals.