The “Good Boss”
Have you heard the story of the “Good Boss?”
As I heard it, the story says there was a “Good Boss”. This person managed a lot of people over the years. Everyone who worked under this person would say, “There was no doubt who was in charge.” Yet each described an odd sense of bewilderment, wondering at different points, “Just exactly who worked for who.”
Those interviewed years later describe this boss as “The best they’d ever worked for.” Because of this person's subtle fame, a researcher, Dr. Terence Martin, determined to use the “Good Boss” as a case study.
His research team interviewed 500 people who had worked for the “Good Boss." They used practical questions framed on common management attributes such as decision-making. They asked questions like, “How often was the ‘Good Boss’ right?” When the research team reviewed the responses of the 500 people studied, most said they couldn’t know for sure, but they “felt” like this person was a good decision-maker. Although, most remembered moments when the “Good Boss” made poor decisions as well.
When all of the responses were evaluated, there seemed to be no discernable insights. It was as though the “Good Boss,” this person of legend or myth, was nothing better than average.
Lead researcher, Dr. Martin, noted in his report, “The conviction of the 500 people studied regarding the “Good Boss” isn’t imagined, even though our data seems to say the very opposite. Listening to each respondent, I know there is something authentic about their experience.”
Dr. Martin instructed his team to interview all 500 people again. This time they would ask each person to share a story about their experience working for the “Good Boss”. The interviewers were instructed to note the descriptive language, facial expression, and body language in detail as each person spoke.
After completing the interviews, Dr. Martin and his team decided to add one more element to the research. They interviewed the top 20 CEOs in America. In each interview, they added two additional questions. Using information gathered in the previous study, they created a resume for the ultimate “management candidate.” Referencing the resume, they asked each CEO two questions.
Question 1: For what level of management would you be willing to hire this person?
Question 2: Could you see this person eventually filling the role of CEO of a major company?
The feedback from the 20 CEOs was almost unanimous. 17 out of 20 said they wouldn’t hire the person for any management position, and all 20 agreed the person could never be a successful CEO of a major corporation.
BUT the most insightful data came from a series of 5 questions the researchers used to close out each interview:
1. Have you ever had a bad boss?
2. Describe the characteristics of a bad boss?
3. Have you ever had a good boss?
4. Describe the characteristics of a good boss?
5. Are you a bad or good boss?
The results were typical and stunning at the same time. All had experienced working under a bad boss and a good boss. All could describe the characteristics of a bad boss clearly. Although it would seem, in terms of simple logic, the opposite of what makes someone a bad boss would be precisely what makes them a good one. That’s not what turned out to be true.
Even though bad bosses were poor communicators, being an excellent communicator didn’t make someone a good boss. Was your bad boss a control freak? Someone who projected blame and hogged all the credit for themselves? Great, unfortunately, even if a boss wasn’t a control freak, didn’t blame others, and shared credit, he or she still didn’t automatically qualify as a “Good Boss.”
What’s more, in comparing the feedback from the respondents regarding “what makes someone a bad boss,” the researchers found many from the group of 500 and the 20 CEOs had “bad boss” attributes themselves. Yet, not one person graded themselves as a bad boss.
More ironic, none of the people interviewed who had worked for the legendary great boss who inspired this study graded themselves as bad bosses even though many said they did not manage like the “Good Boss.”
So what is the secret sauce of being a great boss?
Oddly enough, according to Dr. Martin, it isn’t a list of attributes or skills. It’s the ability to hold paradoxical tensions.
Think of it this way, every good boss, the data showed, was at some point a bad boss. So what separates a good boss from a bad one? A bad boss won’t acknowledge their missteps and failures. A good boss does.
TLDR: A good boss knows they will be a bad boss at times, and they own it.
Every boss, manager, or leader miscommunicates, gets disorganized, even overwhelmed. The good ones have the emotional capacity to acknowledge mistakes, apologize for their actions, own the consequences, make the situation right, discover how they got to that point, and learn from it.
The bad bosses don’t. Bad bosses are fragile people, trapped in a glass house of others' opinions, public perception, or worse, their own false realities. They don’t see themselves as people who can make mistakes as much as people who are misunderstood or disliked.
TLDR: A good boss can admit, apologize, own, repair, discover, and learn.
The story says Dr. Martin took his notes and filed them away. When someone asked, “Why?” Dr. Martin’s response was, “I wanted to understand what it took to be a great boss. I was not, as it turns out, ready to become one.”
The story you just read was a fable. Every piece of it was made up… or was it? That will be for you to decide.
The point of the story? We can either embrace the paradox or live a lie of our own imagination but we can’t do both.
“All people should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.” ~ James Thurber
