by Charles Plant | Jul 30, 2013 | Leadership Development
A reader’s post got me thinking about power in the workplace. Power, especially positional power, is often misunderstood and frequently misused. There are all sorts of different types of power including:
- Positional power
- Expert power
- Informational power
- Referent power
- Connection power
- Reward power
- Coercive power
Power per se isn’t the problem because there will always be different levels of power of different sorts between individuals in any type of group. The problem occurs as I see it when power is misused.
In my mind and you may debate me on this, the most legitimate types of power are positional and expert based power. After all, there is a good reason why people in certain positions have power as they are held accountable for results so they should have the power to make whatever decisions they need to make in order to get those results.
Expert power too is important as we need to turn to experts in order to make decisions outside our realm of knowledge.
One problem I see frequently is how positional power can trump expert power and leave the expert pissed off and disengaged. I used to serve on a variety Boards of Directors, both commercial and not-for profit. I eventually got fed up and decided to stop serving on boards as I got pissed off one too many times.
The problem is that once you make someone a director of something (or a mentor) many of them think they automatically know everything, otherwise why would they be a director. They often think that every member of a board has equal say, even when they have no background in a topic.
The end result is that a group of non-experts vote down the recommendations of an expert because they have positional power. It happens too inside companies where bone-headed upper management decides something completely in contradiction to the recommendations of their own experts.
Maybe I can make a game of Rock, Paper Scissors out of different types of power.
by Charles Plant | Jul 18, 2013 | Leadership Development
In the last few days, I have read quite a few stories about Bossholes and I keep wondering, is there another perspective on these situations? After all, I’m sure that there are a few people out there who might consider me to be a Bosshole but I don’t think I’m one.
I read one story about a Bosshole and it was clear to me from reading it that the person complaining was clearly in the wrong but she just didn’t get it. If I looked at the situation from her boss’s perspective then I could see why he did what he did. The thing is there are two sides to every story.
It’s much too easy to jump to the conclusion that your boss is a Bosshole when you don’t like what he or she did. I’m convinced that other than Mr. Wonderful, there aren’t many people who wake up every day wondering what new ways might they invent to torment their employees.
I don’t want to play a game of “blame the victim” but when you run into a Bosshole maybe you should look at the situation from his or her perspective. Maybe there are factors that you haven’t considered. Maybe your first perspective is flawed and you might benefit from changing it.
I don’t know. It’s worth a try and it seems to be working for me these days.
by Charles Plant | Jul 16, 2013 | Leadership Development
A response from a faithful reader about yesterday’s post got me thinking about the nature of Bossholism. The funny thing is that Bossholes aren’t that way to everyone, just to subordinates and other unworthies.
After all, Steve Jobs was infamous for being a Bosshole but he had tremendous empathy for customers. In fact the foundation of Apple’s brilliance was his dedication to making products that customers would love, just not jobs that employees would love.
Bossholes are also very nice to their bosses and other employees at higher levels in the organization. And in fact they also might be nice to their families (although I have a hard time believing that Mr Wonderful is just that with his family.)
What is it then that makes a person a Bosshole to some and a Mr Wonderful to others? How can people regulate their emotional intelligence in such a way as to be perfect at some times and a jerk at others?
Since EI is so hard to develop I can only conclude that it is a form of discrimination that causes Bossholes to lack empathy for certain classes of people. The really puzzling thing though is that if Bossholism is tolerated at work, then work is tolerating discrimination.
Workplaces wouldn’t tolerate discrimination against other sexes, other races, or other religions. Why then does it tolerate discrimination by Bossholes against subordinates. Very puzzling.
by Charles Plant | Jul 15, 2013 | Leadership Development
I was procrastinating this morning and ended up watching a video that featured Kevin O’Leary (aka Mr Wonderful) as he waxed poetic about being a Bosshole. I never thought I would see someone actually be proud of this.
In leadership parlance, one of the marks of a good leader is someone who is sensitive to and works to promote morale in a group. The opposite if this is a Bosshole, which the Urban Dictionary defines as “an employer of a particularly evil nature, completely devoid of empathy or concern for anyone else. the deadly hybrid of boss and asshole.”
Many organizations seem to tolerate Bossholes if they get results. In many cases it may be the dirty little secret of organizations that they keep the morale destroyers on staff as long as results pour in.
So then does morale really matter or is it only results that matter? Is it OK to be a Bosshole as long as you get results? Does bad morale necessarily lead to bad results?
I think the key is that it isn’t necessary to be a Bosshole to get good results. Since it isn’t necessary and there are nicer ways of getting the same results, then why would anyone want to be a Bosshole? The thing about Mr Wonderful is that he seems to want to be a Bosshole.
by Charles Plant | Jul 12, 2013 | Leadership Development
Spoiler alert – Do not read this if you intend to watch the Tour de France later today.
Today’s Tour de France was an amazing spectacle of how you can succeed by cooperating with your competition. In fact in the Tour, if you want to win, you must cooperate with your competitors.
Today was a 173 km flat stage ending in Saint-Amand-Montrond. As a flat stage, there isn’t usually much drama as everyone rides together with the peleton until the sprinters make a mad dash at the end.
What made today’s tour different and was damaging to Chris Froome, the Tour leader was a nasty side wind that kept breaking the peleton into smaller and smaller groups until a final break of 14 riders including Alberto Contador prevailed and Mark Cavendish sprinted to victory.
What was interesting though was to watch how competing teams worked together to either get a jump on the competition or try to catch up to the leaders. It was an ever evolving game of cat and mouse where you cooperated with another team one minute and then left them in the ditch when you decided they were ripe for competition.
What it reminded me was of the game for promotions in large corporations where employees cooperate only until such time as they think they can get the leap on co-workers and then they turn cooperation into competition.
It also mimics corporate strategies that have major firms cooperating to further their joint aims while they are looking for chances to drive into a competitive mode.
On a side note, this is what you get to do when you don’t have a boss. You can sit around all morning watching the Tour and claim that it is research.
by Charles Plant | Jul 10, 2013 | Leadership Development
As I watched Rob Ford talk yesterday about the Great Toronto Flood I couldn’t help but compare him to Naheed Nenshi. (Smaller city, bigger flood.) Without trying to bash Ford as there are enough people to do this, I tried to figure out what makes Nenshi such a good leader.
They were both elected at the same time and there are quite a few people out there wondering if the two cities got their mayors reversed. After all, Toronto is a really cool place isn’t it and Calgary is just a hick town? So how did we get the hick as mayor and Calgary got the social media savant?
The thing about Nenshi is his ability to communicate. He stayed awake during their crisis, keeping Calgarians informed. He was online, constantly tweeting. Throughout the crisis he looked in control, he looked calm and competent.
And I think that’s the key to his latest performance. He made Calgarians feel safe in a time of crisis. If leadership is a lot about emotions then he displayed exactly the type of emotions needed in the situation.
