The Bosses We Remember…

So … I posted a business cartoon (picture) last week (which was based on a tweet from Vala Afshar – a Digital Marketing Evangelist at Salesforce) about traits of great bosses.  That post unexpectedly took off.  Like wildfire.  And interestingly, people were commenting.  Many comments.  Not to me but about former and current bosses.  They started naming names of their wonderful bosses along the way.  I read the comments with a big smile on my face seeing all the names of those great bosses who have impacted the careers of many.  I would even bet many of those bosses did not even realize the measure of the impact they had.  

The picture very simply showed us nine simple traits of bosses we remember who:

-       Provide us a safe place to grow

-       Open career doors

-       Defend us when we needed it

-       Recognize and reward us

-       Develop us as leaders

-       Inspire us to stretch higher

-       Lead by example

-       Told us our work matters

-       Forgave us when we made mistakes

Nine.  Nine simple traits.  Less than 50 words in total.  Those words defined the impact on careers and growth and development and legacy.  Nine simple traits.  I dug in and expanded on those traits:

Provide us a safe place to grow.  From Maktuno Suit, “Recently, the notion of creating psychologically safe cultures and teams in the workplace has become central to our understanding of an effective organizational environment.   Google’s recent workplace research ‘Project Aristotle’ studied team effectiveness and found that a key feature of effective teams was ‘psychological safety'. People in these teams feel comfortable to take risks and be vulnerable in front of one another. Simon Sinek writes in his latest book ‘Leaders Eat Last’ about how the organization is comparable to a family, and that the leader as 'parent' has the responsibility to create a 'circle of safety' in the culture of their organization.”

'Attachment' is a psychological model discovered in the 1960s by psychologist John Bowlby that describes how human beings seek proximity to others for safety and emotional regulation. During times of uncertainty, or fear we seek proximity to ‘attachment figures’ - who attune themselves to how we are feeling and help us to regulate our emotions. These people are like ‘safe spaces’ (which Bowlby termed 'secure bases') from which we can explore the world around us, and then return to in difficult times. When we have relationships that are ‘safe spaces’ we feel free to take risks in the world around us and grow, confident that we will receive care if we find ourselves in a difficult situation.

How great is it to learn when your boss has you reflect on mistakes for growth and learning (versus punishment and shame)?

Open career doors.  To a large extent – career development is on our own shoulders. We need to know which areas we want to improve in, and what our long-term career goals are. We need to proactively communicate these goals to our boss and suggest action points for achieving these.  Once we have done this however, our boss should use their experience, seniority, and influence within the organization to help us achieve our goals. As a leader, we have connections, we hear things, we “know people”.  

I had a boss in my early years say, “as a leader you need to bring that flower out from under the tree and put it in the sunlight for all to see”.  How true that was then, as it is today.  Let your people shine.

Defend us when we needed it.  To lock in your team’s loyalty, boldly defend their backs.  “All for one, one for all." Bosses matter to everyone they oversee, but they matter most to those just beneath them in the pecking order: the people they guide at close range, who constantly tangle with the our virtues, foibles, and quirks. Whether we are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the head chef at a restaurant, our success depends on staying in tune with the people we interact with most frequently and intensely.  

That same boss from my early years always had written on his whiteboard, “Give credit more and accept blame more.”  

Recognize and reward us.  Giving honest, sincere appreciation is one of Dale Carnegie’s fundamental techniques for winning friends and influencing people. Why? Because sincere appreciation makes people feel valued, important, confident, and connected, and when our employees feel this way, they are more likely to be engaged.  Recognizing and rewarding good work does double duty: it makes employees feel valued, and it motivates them to do more good work.  Personally, hand written notes and personalized letters are what I see pinned up as proud moments in workspaces, not cashed checks or used gift cards.  I still have a note from Janet Yellen in my “keepsake folder”.

Develop us as leaders.  Great leaders discover what is universal and capitalize on it. Our job is to rally our people toward a better future. We can succeed in this only when we can cut through differences of race, sex, age, nationality, and personality and, using stories and celebrating heroes, tap into those very few needs we all share. There are, at least, three things we must know about someone to develop her leadership skills: her strengths, the triggers that activate those strengths, and how she learns.

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams

Inspire us to stretch higher.  To understand what makes a leader inspirational, Bain & Company launched a new research program, starting with a survey of 2,000 people. It turns out that inspiration alone is not enough. Just as leaders who deliver only performance may do so at a cost that the organization is unwilling to bear, those who focus only on inspiration may find that they motivate the troops but are undermined by mediocre outcomes. Instead, inspiring leaders are those who use their unique combination of strengths to motivate individuals and teams to take on bold missions – and hold them accountable for results. And they unlock higher performance through empowerment, not command and control.  

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart." – Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Lead by example.  People like to follow leaders who roll up their sleeves and are willing to get in the trenches with them.  We must be able to delegate, taking the longer-term view described in the old example of teaching people how to fish versus giving them a fish.  Give our team what they need to succeed.  With empowerment should come collaboration, both between teams and among team members.  Leaders follow Golden Rule concepts.  

Real leaders forget about themselves and instinctively react in the interest of their team.

Told us our work matters.  People who live their purpose at work are more productive than people who don’t. They are also healthier, more resilient, and more likely to stay at the company. Moreover, when employees feel that their purpose is aligned with the organization’s purpose, the benefits expand to include stronger employee engagement, heightened loyalty, and a greater willingness to recommend the company to others.  When employees have a chance to reflect on their own sense of purpose, and how it connects to the company’s purpose, good things happen.  Group meetings and immersive, small-group sessions may not sound as sexy as a paid leave of absence to do good in the world, but they are a lot more effective at helping employees start to see the good they can do in their day-to-day work. Many people spend many of their waking hours at work, so creating space for the little things to become purposeful can quickly snowball into better work experiences—and better work environments—for everyone.  

“Developing a good work ethic is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you're a janitor or taking your first summer job because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.” - Tyler Perry.

Forgave us when we made mistakes.  From Jayne Coles, “The forgiving manager understands the unpredictable nature of work and knows that with progress come setbacks. You can’t move forward without moving back sometimes. They expect people to be “on the edge” in terms of their efforts and prefer encouragement rather than chastisement when things go wrong. Their team is not afraid of making mistakes, and some managers might actively encourage it. You don’t learn much if you are doing everything perfectly all the time.

Many managers can forgive for the sake of progress (as long as the mistake is not repeated countless times) but forgetting is a whole lot harder. Every boss has their priorities and daily tasks, so every time that they are called upon to do some firefighting, it is an inevitable disruption to their day. It is part of a leader’s job description – you saw Richard Branson take the flak when his shuttle exploded, and you know that he will continue to do so until his space program is a success. He won’t remind his team of their past mistakes; he will merely seek to build upon where they are at that given moment in time. In a way, to forgive properly, you have to be able to forget.”

“Success lies in one’s ability to learn from mistakes.” ― Dr Prem Jagyasi 

Together.   We.   Win.   

...and PS - feel free to give a shout out to those great bosses and why they were great.