Meet The New Boss. Same As The Old Boss.

General walks upon a band of soldiers loitering around. Everyone stiffens to attention.

'Got a penny?' He snapped. Hint: I need to make a call but can't get a damned signal. 

'Sure, mate'. Smiles a rookie and promptly reaches into his fatigues.

General turns around with a raised eyebrow, looks him dead in the eye and says very slowly. 'Excuse me. Let's try again. Got a penny?'

Rookie (with a deadpan expression) looks straight ahead and says.' No, sir'.



     'Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.'- Joan of Arc
                                                                                                
Of all people, Jack Welch at World Business Forum, said, “Fear is dead as a management tool". One may even add. 'Orders only work in the army. In corporates however, cooperation works!'

'Tsk. Pollyannish thinking!' I can hear the skeptics smirk. 'You mean tell him he's great and eat crow. No, cooperation can only get you transferred to the mail room licking envelopes. You need hard, take-no-prisoners style of talk to get things done. Even old timers used to call this, piss and vinegar!'

'Now, that's just a train wreck waiting to happen', you could counter. 'Cooperation ain't boot licking for crissake! Why, cooperation is simply the milk of human kindness to grease communication...'

Except good faith misunderstanding is what can spoil your ship for ha-porth of tar. Yes, harmony is achieved when employees feel good about coming to work and the work atmosphere is informal.But is no trouble in paradise, really so good?

 
Bosses managing such groups often want to project the image that on their watch 'everything is under complete control' and 'our group works as one unit.' However, this man may view a complainant, say, you as someone who is not a team player and mistrust you, as an outsider or even whistleblower.

However the decision to discount complaint and quickly dismiss denies the company the opportunity to learn important information. By making a decision, based only on his own 'infallible' experience, your idealist boss may have missed something perfectly important...

Too much truth can sadly make some madder than too little.

On the other hand, a boss who can go beyond the investigation of a complaint to attempt to address the underlying problems that led to the complaint, have made a true commitment to improving the company work ethics and placed his/her authority squarely behind the company values.



The seemingly friendly boss. You all know this guy who tries to chat you up (creating awkward silences) and punctilious about reading every single mail (marking mails as read so nothing shows unread in his inbox). Well he's so affable, he insists guys that report into you to approach him, Don Populare, when they see the slightest sign of trouble, prompting them to air grievances and complaints, already dealt with or so trivial they normally receive no attention. Yet he never hesitates to grind his axe and pull rank when they complain about you, without as much as now offering you the slightest benefit of doubt or allowing a word in protest in similar circumstances!


Can anyone please tell this guy? Unless he is desperate for camaraderie and consequently eager to believe what anyone says, in his burning desire to be fair to the 'weak and innocent', no one wants to see minor situations escalate and equally good employees (you) hurt by rumors and innuendo...

Some are born weak. Some turn weak. Some merely pretend.
                                                              

From a corporate angle, one plain difference between oligarchy and plutocracy is in the former, power is vested in a few while in the latter, few by virtue of wealth dominate. You see this in self owned companies, when marriage between two can lead to kakistocracy where the least effective people are often promoted to the most effective positions. Now, you may surely argue, almost all companies start with one or more bright eyed guys at some point or other, who chose to break out of the pack and how you will gladly give your middle arm to work in some but check in how many is HR and your boss anything but neutral to one another? Who wears the pants in that flimflam relationship?


This opens Pandora's box. Say, something happened but HR 'felt' the complainant’s interpretation was incorrect or unreasonable at worst or at best, why attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity? So, your boss leans on HR to cut corners and close the investigation quickly to allow people to 'move on'.

Have we, I fancy, confused corporate power and responsibility with smug, self righteousness?
 
Can you ignore a potential distress when it is easy to interview others and confirm facts? Even if the complainant is the only victim, do you want wrong behavior to go unchastened? Good HR practices focus on grievance process and makes counseling available from trained guides and meets employee needs for resolution of work conflicts and work issues. Practices that it's also less likely employees start crying foul to draw attention on anything!

Conversely, further to disciplining the respondent, HR can ask if actions can be taken to make the complainant 'whole'. Making someone whole, in this context, means putting the victim back in the position had the incident not occurred. Example, work time lost as a result, could be compensated.
 
                                            
Addressing the need of a client is one thing, upstaging your employee who is confidently meeting it, is quite another. 

Yet, you see it all around. Young, driven MBA enters as the new boss. Starts cracking the whip in the name of customer satisfaction. He sees nothing wrong in taking credit on success and passing the blame on failures. Ingratiating to seniors who further support him, he believes more in playing to the gallery than in pushing teamwork across boundaries. The sycophancy is sickening. The sort that makes you pace in your apartment in disbelief. You keep safe distance. He steps up the aggression and soon morale plummets faster than some piano thrown from Burj Khalifa and mutual expectations are met no more than ships passing in the night. If you imagined leadership is 'lead, follow or get out of the way', this is stepping on toes. At least your previous boss was only guilty of micromanagement.

 
I once read a book that said, your average boss does not think deep down he deserves that position so a couple of well placed insults followed by a genuine compliment, will have him rooting for you!

I also read one that said, a good boss is like a good jockey. The horse does not feel him or her unless absolutely necessary...

Take a minute to think over it.


And I think, all I'll need is the striped pants and a star of David.
                                                                                            
Yours Truly,
A Lead.