{"id":2142,"date":"2015-11-10T14:26:36","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T19:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/control-h.org\/?p=2142"},"modified":"2015-11-10T14:26:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T19:26:36","slug":"ten-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/2015\/11\/10\/ten-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What are some qualities of bad bosses? What would you not do if you were supervising others? (No, I won\u2019t aks for you to make your worst bosses, but you can write about why they sucked.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worst Qualities:<\/strong>
1. Lack of sympathy comes immediately to mind. I understand that my situation is odd for many people. Hell, it\u2019s odd for me! I don\u2019t expect empathy; quit trying. Your situation is likely nothing at all like mine, so you have no idea. To quote Coach Mora, \u201cyou think you know, but you don\u2019t know.\u201d And I hope you never will I\u2019m not being unreliable on purpose. If I need extra time off, or am having trouble doing something, I\u2019m getting better at admitting it.
2. Unwillingness to take a wholistic appropach The little things do matter, but they\u2019re ultimely less important than the whole. Something that is utterly bad might have all those little things that you think are important. Does it really do the job? Sticking with the football comparison, George Allen used to talk about Sonny Jurgensen\u2019s passes versus Billy Kilmer\u2019s; he thought they won more games with Kilmer under center. This was one of the big things I ran into with one job; having a perfectly-startched shirt was more important than putting out a good, correct product.
3. Abusing your subordinates in front of others to make yourself seem competent. Yelling at someone just makes you an asshole, unless there\u2019s something life-or-death at stake. Very little of the work I do rises to that level. If I screw soemthing up, which I do more often than I\u2019d like, take me aside, and say it in private. The same goes for written evaluations; if you dish it out, be prepared for me to disagree. If you do not afford me that opportunity, I\u2019m going to snark about it when I\u2019m forced to sign something \u201caccepting\u201d it. No, I don\u2019t accept it, and I can tell you you\u2019re why you\u2019re wrong if you give me the opportunity.
4. Unwillingness to attribute anything. A \u201cmeeting\u201d without an agenda, an attandence sheet, or minutes didn\u2019t happen<\/strong>.
5. Unwillingness to own up to your own mistakes. You screw up. I\u2019ve already told you that I do, too. I don\u2019t harp on your mistakes, and am willing to move on if you own up to your own shortcomings. Listen, I\u2019m not a Red Sox fan, and you\u2019re not Bill Buckner.
6. Being dishonest about compensation. I do realize that I\u2019m in the current position I\u2019m in because I pissed off someone who\u2019s now in Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison. I may be younger than you; I\u2019m not a rookie.
7. Putting your own need for a quick buck ahead of the customer\u2019s needs, and demands. If the customer doesn\u2019t understand what he actually needs, do the damn research, and convince him. If you, and your employees aren\u2019t 100% sold on your individual solution, it\u2019s probably not the right solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure I could go on and on with those, but I\u2019m tired today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what would I do if I was supervising people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Offer suggestions instead of bark orders. If I can explain why\/how doing something differently might be better, I think I\u2019m more likely to get cooperation.<\/li>
  2. Figure out what someone really cares about in his work, and let him concentrate on that.<\/li>
  3. Understand the bigger picture. One of the bits in Office Space<\/em> was the new motto, \u201cis this good for the company?\u201d No, is this good for the customer, first. Second, is this good for the quality of the work? Maybe something\u2019s different than what you\u2019re accustomed to; maybe there\u2019s a reason why what your\u2019e accustomed to has fallen out of favor?<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Much like the bad thngs, I could go on and on about the things I\u2019d do. That said, my dinner is getting cold.
    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What are some qualities of bad bosses? What would you not do if you were supervising others? (No, I won\u2019t aks for you to make your worst bosses, but you can write about why they sucked.) Worst Qualities:1. Lack of sympathy comes immediately to mind. I understand that my situation is odd for many people. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-journal-writers-month"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}