Good Boss, Bad Boss

Key Takeaways

1. Self-awareness is crucial for effective leadership

If you are a boss, your success depends on staying in tune with how others think, feel, and react to you.

The toxic tandem. Bosses often overestimate their positive impact and underestimate their negative impact on subordinates. This power-induced blindness, coupled with followers' hypervigilance to bosses' actions, creates a dangerous dynamic.

Combat cluelessness. Great bosses:

• Actively seek feedback from trusted advisors and followers
• Encourage open communication, even when it's uncomfortable
• Regularly reflect on their behavior and its impact
• Stay humble and open to learning, regardless of their success

To stay grounded, some bosses use techniques like:

• Assigning "bosshole monitors" to provide honest feedback
• Paying a small "fine" when caught being insensitive
• Imagining how their actions would look to their children or other loved ones

2. Balance performance and humanity to be a great boss

Bosses ought to be judged by what they and their people get done and by how their followers feel along the way.

Dual focus. The best bosses strike a balance between driving performance and maintaining humanity. They understand that success isn't just about achieving goals, but also about how people feel during the process.

Key elements of this balance:

• Set high standards while showing empathy and respect
• Celebrate achievements while addressing failures constructively
• Push for results without sacrificing team morale
• Provide both challenge and support

Examples of bosses who excel at this balance:

• Ed Catmull at Pixar, fostering creativity while maintaining high standards
• Anne Mulcahy at Xerox, turning the company around while prioritizing employee well-being
• Mitchell Baker at Mozilla, leading with both vision and values

3. Adopt a gritty mindset and focus on small wins

Gritty bosses create urgency without treating life as one long emergency.

Persistent progress. Great bosses combine long-term vision with a focus on incremental achievements. They understand that success is a marathon, not a sprint.

Characteristics of gritty bosses:

• Maintain optimism in the face of setbacks
• Break down large goals into manageable tasks
• Celebrate small victories to maintain momentum
• Demonstrate resilience and teach it to their team

Techniques for fostering grit:

• Create clear, achievable milestones
• Regularly review and acknowledge progress
• Encourage learning from failures
• Share stories of perseverance and eventual success

4. Create psychological safety to foster innovation and learning

When people don't feel safe—let alone obligated—to point out concerns, jump in, and correct their boss's mistakes, then learning and error correction grind to a halt.

Safe environment. Psychological safety is crucial for creativity, problem-solving, and continuous improvement. It allows team members to take risks, voice concerns, and learn from mistakes without fear of retribution.

Key practices to build psychological safety:

• Encourage open dialogue and dissenting opinions
• Respond positively to questions and challenges
• Admit your own mistakes and limitations
• Frame failures as learning opportunities

Examples of psychological safety in action:

• Google's Project Oxygen, which identified psychological safety as a key factor in team success
• IDEO's brainstorming sessions, where wild ideas are encouraged and critiqued constructively
• Pixar's "Braintrust" meetings, where frank feedback is given on films in progress

5. Recruit and nurture connective talent for team success

The best bosses don't just recruit people with stellar solo skills; they bring in employees who will weave their vigor and talents with others.

Collaborative excellence. Great bosses understand that individual brilliance is not enough; team members must also have the ability to work well with others and enhance collective performance.

Strategies for building connective talent:

• Hire for both technical skills and interpersonal abilities
• Foster a culture of cooperation rather than competition
• Reward team players and those who help others succeed
• Provide opportunities for cross-functional collaboration

Benefits of connective talent:

• Improved team cohesion and communication
• Enhanced problem-solving through diverse perspectives
• Increased innovation through idea sharing
• Better overall team performance and job satisfaction

6. Link talk to action by simplifying communication and processes

If you are a boss, your job is to find the equivalent of "Brace, brace, heads down, stay down" for your followers.

Clarity and simplicity. Effective bosses bridge the gap between knowledge and action by communicating clearly and removing unnecessary complexities.

Techniques for linking talk to action:

• Use simple, concrete language
• Repeat key messages consistently
• Develop clear checklists and action plans
• Eliminate unnecessary meetings and reports

Examples of simplification in action:

• Steve Jobs reducing Apple's product line to four core offerings
• A. G. Lafley's "Sesame Street Simple" approach at Procter & Gamble
• The use of pre-flight checklists in aviation to ensure safety

7. Serve as a human shield and do necessary dirty work

A good boss takes pride in serving as a human shield, absorbing and deflecting heat from superiors and customers, doing all manner of boring and silly tasks, and battling back against every idiot and slight that makes life unfair or harder than necessary on his or her charges.

Protection and action. Great bosses shield their team from unnecessary distractions and take on difficult tasks themselves when needed.

Ways bosses act as human shields:

• Buffer the team from excessive bureaucracy and politics
• Take responsibility for team failures
• Handle difficult conversations with problematic stakeholders
• Prioritize and filter incoming requests and information

Examples of bosses doing dirty work:

• A police captain supporting officers after a traumatic incident
• A CEO personally handling layoffs to protect team morale
• A manager taking on mundane tasks to allow team focus on critical work

8. Squelch your inner bosshole to maintain respect and productivity

If you are a boss, your success depends on being fixated on yourself. Your success depends on being fixated on how others think, feel, and react to you.

Self-control and empathy. Great bosses recognize the potential for power to corrupt and actively work to counteract negative tendencies.

Strategies to avoid becoming a bosshole:

• Regularly seek feedback on your behavior
• Practice empathy and perspective-taking
• Manage stress and maintain work-life balance
• Address personal triggers that lead to poor behavior

Consequences of bosshole behavior:

• Decreased team morale and productivity
• Higher employee turnover
• Damage to personal and organizational reputation
• Increased workplace stress and health issues

9. Stay in tune with how others perceive and react to you

Are you in tune with what it feels like to work for you?

Constant awareness. The best bosses maintain a keen understanding of their impact on others and continuously adjust their behavior accordingly.

Techniques for staying in tune:

• Regularly solicit honest feedback from all levels
• Pay attention to non-verbal cues and team dynamics
• Reflect on interactions and their outcomes
• Create a culture where open communication is valued and rewarded

Benefits of staying in tune:

• Improved leadership effectiveness
• Stronger trust and loyalty from team members
• Ability to address issues before they escalate
• Continuous personal and professional growth

Last updated: January 24, 2025

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