 |
| Illustration: Susanta Das |
A bad boss can drive you up the wall; he can drive you into sickbay too. Recent research shows that it is not just mental health but also physical health that can get affected by a monster at the top. The office environment takes up a good chunk of your life. It’s rather like having a harridan of a wife nagging at you all the time. “But you haven’t taken any solemn vows,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D.N. Singh. “You should get out of the mess as soon as possible.”
People do. A recent survey in the UK conducted by banking group First Direct says almost a third of British workers have changed jobs because of a bad boss. Some 12 per cent even abandon their careers and seek out some other line. “They feel that the influence of a boss can be industry-wide,” says Singh. “And, for all you know, the guy you have been running scared of may change jobs too and end up as your boss in your new company.”
It’s difficult to quantify the damage bad bosses do on this parameter alone. But there is obviously a lot of training and other resources that have been pumped into the employees. If 33 out of every 100 leave, the organisation is indeed squandering a lot of valuable resources.
So why does the top management tolerate such a situation? The first reason is that it is often difficult to make out a bad boss. In the short term, they seem to work fine. Productivity and the bottomline look up. If there are complaints, they are dismissed with the words “These people are being made to work for the first time. Obviously they will crib.”
Second, the management itself may have a short-term attitude. This is one of the drawbacks of professional management that few seem to realise. It is only in the best of companies that the chief executive officer or CEO has a long enough term.
In most places, the first few years are spent unravelling the systems his predecessor put in place. If he simply accepts them, what will be his claim to fame and when will be his hour of glory? That is why you will find CEOs breaking down structures they themselves helped put in place as the No. 2 man.
The end result is that after the destruction phase, there is very little time left for the creation phase. As the contribution of a CEO is principally measured by the profits he has brought in, bad bosses are tolerated as long as they help bring in the big bucks.
Bosses can be bad in many ways. The only way to get some sort of a profile is to look at the issue from the other direction: what makes a good boss?
The First Direct survey asked respondents what they expect from a good boss. The principal qualities desired were:
• Approachability (83 per cent)
• Being a good communicator (82 per cent)
• Being supportive (81 per cent)
• Being a good leader (80 per cent)
• Someone who respects the staff as individuals (76 per cent)
If you look at these traits, they are all “soft” skills. There is no “Should know my job better than me” or “Can fill in for anybody in the team if he or she is missing for a day.” That actually goes against the good boss picture — he should show the team members that they are valued.
Want more on bad bosses? Take a look at the literature available. Here are some books: A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses; Coping with Toxic Managers; Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers & Other Office Idiots...
Search Amazon for a good boss and this is what you get: Good Boss, Bad Boss; The Girl’s Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch); Kill the Boss Goodbye...
The good boss always seems to come hyphenated with the bad boss. So does changing jobs really help?
THE GOOD BOSS PATH
1 Read, remember. Go through relevant books and the Internet. Try to remember all the experiences you have had with different bosses. List them and try to pick the good points and bad points in them.
2 Empower. Delegate work. It’s an art and you might have to do it step by step. Teach your team something. You will get the respect that a boss should get. But do not micro-manage and ruin it.
3 Don’t be a boss. Well, you are the boss but you don’t have to keep driving that point home. So you think nobody will listen to you. Try listening to them first. You will be surprised to hear what the team has to say. You are much like a decision-maker who knows how to collect opinions and make a choice.
4 Clear roles. Tell them what to do or your team will be all confused and not know who is doing what. That is what you are there for. But listen to them and take every opportunity to learn more about them. Every person is different. Some like challenging stuff, some just like to do stuff that is perceived to be important.
5 Credit, criticism. Appreciate publicly but criticise privately. It’s all about boosting the ego. Don’t steal credit for your team’s effort.
