116. Why Having a Bad Boss Won’t Make You a Good One

Transcript – Episode 116: Why Having a Bad Boss Won’t Make You a Good One

Joe:
Hey there, BossHeroes. I’m taking a little break from the show this summer, but fear not because we’ve got a whole schedule of content you’ve not heard before. While I recharge my batteries, we’ve decided to share the episodes of a short but popular YouTube series I did a few years ago on how bosses cultivate commitment in the workplace. So, every other Sunday through the end of the summer, you’ll hear these quick funny lessons on how to inspire teams, get results, and be a boss that people don’t hate. You’ll even get to hear the old rock theme music we used and some recording bloopers at the end. Enjoy! And thanks for all that you do to care for so many.

Joe:
For eight consecutive years, I partnered with a local hospital to deliver a leadership development workshop to the residents there going into their fourth year. The fourth year of residency at this hospital required those early career physicians to supervise others really for the first time in their careers. As part of that morning spent together, I’d facilitate a series of exercises and discussions to get these young leaders thinking about what the younger residents will need from them as supervisors, and every year during this exercise when I’d ask participants to describe the leadership style they believe works best, inevitably someone would say the following, my boss last year was terrible, so I learned what not to do. My plan is to do the opposite and be the kind of boss I’d want to have. Believe it or not, this is deeply flawed thinking when your charge is to lead people. I’ll tell you why right after this commercial break. Just kidding, we don’t have commercials. Play our theme song.

Joe:
Hey, to make sure you get these videos and all the other great BossBetter content I publish, make sure you go to joemull.com and subscribe.

Joe:
The common refrain that we often hear from new leaders that they know what not to do because they perceived their boss as bad or that they simply plan to treat others the way they wanted to be treated, actually sets up a leader for failure, and it’s for a pretty simple reason. People aren’t all the same. If you decide that you’re going to be the kind of boss you want to have, that’s gonna work great as long as the people you supervise are just like you. I’m gonna go out on a limb here though and suggest that maybe, perhaps there’s a tiny percentage of chance that that’s not going to be the case. I’m going to guess that you’ll probably end up having people on your watch who aren’t like you at all.

Joe:
In fact, your very success as a boss is going to hinge on your ability to connect with, challenge, and support people who are the very opposite of you. You’re going to have to lead people who are different from you in every way imaginable. So instead of treating everyone the way you want to be treated — instead of being the kind of boss you’d want to have, try this instead. Be the kind of boss they want to have. Be the kind of boss they need you to be. What’s that? You don’t know what kind of boss they want or need? You don’t know what they need from you to be at their best every day.? That’s right. You don’t know. You can’t know until you ask. This is why leadership has almost nothing to do with telling people what to do or how to do, or when to do, or why to do — nearly as much as it has to do with asking questions and listening intently to responses.

Joe:
You’ve all heard the expression that the best leaders meet their people where they are. How do you find out where that is? You ask constantly over and over again, and it’s not like you get the answer and then you’re done. Because people change as do employee duties, environments, needs, wants, and ambitions. So, there’s never a time when you are done asking.

Joe:
So, there you have it. Instead of being the kind of boss, you wished you’d had at some earlier point in your career, find out what kind of boss your people need in order to be at their best every day and show up in that way as often as possible.

Joe:
I’ll tell everyone that you are a good boss if you do two things for me right now. Leave a comment on this video and then share it wherever you hang out on social media. Thanks for watching. See you next time.

Joe (Outtake):
People need comma. There should be a comma there. All right, I got it now. Okay. Okay. In 3, 2, 1. Nope. Back it up. I need to read that for a second cause, I’m flubbing it up there. Okay, let’s back that up. Okay. I need to cut that little last part was bad.

Joe (Outtake):
Go into the negative. Go into the negative. Go into the negative. There it is. There it is.

Joe (Outtake):
Yeah. Keep going. Keep going. Bring it to me. Bring it to me. There it is. Almost little more, little more. Stop. Put it in park. Here we go.

Joe (Keynote Ad):
Are you planning a meeting or event? Why not have me join you as your keynote speaker?

Joe (Clip from Live Keynote):
Employalty is employer loyalty and humanity. It’s a commitment to creating a more humane employee experience because that’s what triggers commitment at work. I’ll give the leaders in your company a clear vocabulary and framework to turn your organization into a destination workplace.

Joe (Clip from Live Keynote):
What you see in front of you is the Employalty scorecard. Every single person in every single job, in every single company on Earth is walking around with a kind of internal psychological scorecard. And if you can engineer these experiences for the people in your organization and they can check most, if not all of the boxes on this scorecard, you create an extraordinary competitive advantage for your organization and team. And we’re definitely gonna talk about why so many people are changing jobs. Okay, I’m gonna run over to this side of the room now. This is almost as long as a walk from the hotel <laugh>.

Joe (Clip from Live Keynote):
Why are people switching? What is something we haven’t heard yet? Organization. Don’t say someone’s name. That’s not nice. <laugh>. I heard organization. What else? Feeling valued, feeling valued management. But we had dozens of answers for why are people switching? But I would argue there’s only one. I would argue that every answer you just gave rolls up to a bigger idea. And that bigger idea is this. People are switching to improve their quality of life. When we create a workplace that stops treating people like a commodity and starts treating them as a fully formed human being, you don’t just crack the code of commitment, you make a massive difference across society.

Joe (Keynote Ad):
When I arrive on site as your speaker, I have two jobs. Help the people in the audience with the real-world challenges they face every day and do it in a way that is utterly captivating. If you’d like more information, a quote, or to check date availability, just email hello@joemull.com. That’s hello@joemull.com.