Boss and Workplace Issues

Labels: bad boss, bad bosses, boss day, Bosses Day, October 16

Whose leadership would you willingly follow? "Willingly" is the key word. We may follow the direction of others because we're obligated by position, rank or title. But when we "willingly" follow someone's leadership, we're saying: This is someone I trust to do the right thing for the right reason; someone in whom I have confidence, and whose direction I would not question.

Let's make this question a little more specific. The people you choose must meet these three criteria:

1. They must be alive.

2. They must know you well enough that they would return your phone calls personally.

3. They may come from any aspect of your life.

Go ahead. Make your list.

When management-consultant Marilyn Haight asked this question of 918 managers, ranging in age from 25 to 60, seventy percent of them wrote the same name as their only, or their first of only two trusted leaders. Then they identified that person's leadership traits, creating their own definition of a leader — a definition by which they judge everyone who holds a title of authority.

It might surprise you to know that none of them named their boss, or anyone else in their workplace. Did you?

Haight wrote an engaging story, using characters who are composites of the 918 managers with whom she worked, to explain how employees evaluate leaders. Find out what it takes for others to willingly follow your leadership in the book, "Most Trusted Leader: How Employees Judge Leadership;" Worded Write Publishing; ISBN 978-0-9800390-7-8; $12.00; available now from local and online book sellers.

Find it at Amazon.com HERE

Find it at Barnes and Noble HERE

Labels: leader, leadership, leadership book, leadership skills, management, management skills

Got a bad boss? You’re not alone--about half the working population does. If you’re one of them, how do you avoid the awkwardness when someone tries to suck up by planning a happy celebration for a bad situation?

Plan now. If you have vacation or comp time saved up, schedule a long weekend, through Monday, October 17, and go have some fun.

If you’re tempted to engage in subversive activities by secretly leaving a negative message for the boss, DON’T DO IT! Yes, I’m yelling at you! Think about it. It’ll only make things worse.

And do you really want to be like your bad boss? There’s enough ugly behavior in this world. Try to live peacefully amidst it.

Besides, imagine the impact if 62,500,000 employees took the day off. What a way to send a message about the state of civility in the US!

Labels: bad boss, bad bosses, boss day, Bosses Day, October 16, October 17

For years, you’ve held employees hostage with medical benefits that were intended to attract employees in the post-industrial era. You were able to offer medical benefits thanks to the low-cost group-plans you could qualify for, or the self-funded plans into which you could fold profits, thereby reducing your total tax bill. But in a global market, competing with international businesses that are not burdened with healthcare expenses, you find it difficult to compete and continue to offer medical benefits to your employees--without whom you would earn nothing. And your executives are not willing to reduce their exponentially-high salaries to enable the provision of medical benefits for the employees who do the work that earns such hight executive income. But you act as though you think it’s okay for employees, whom you pay up to 400% LESS than your executives, to now pay for their own medical benefits, yet continue to earn your profits. You have a dilemma.

But you are working against yourselves by fighting against national health care. You could have the best of both worlds: a capitalistic economy supplemented by socialistic-like government health care plans that keep your profit makers (employees) healthy and well. So here’s a way out of your dilemma, but you look like you’re working against yourselves: You don’t want to provide medical benefits and you don’t want the government to provide medical benefits. What’s with that? Is the health-care industry threatening you?

And health-care industry: Why do you quaver at the thought of governmental competition? If you were doing your best at providing affordable insurance, our nation wouldn’t be in this dilemma, and government medical plans would be a non-issue for you. Instead, you come across as guilty of gouging--your resistance is tantamount to an admission of mismanagement and manipulation. Thinking-people are not buying into your “threat to capitalism” argument--that’s a cloak. Clean up your act and get creative, or step aside.

Capitalism has it’s benefits, but in a global economy in which business-operating costs are funded differently, perhaps a blended society is worth considering: part capitalism; part socialism.

You can have anything you want, but you can't have everything.

Labels: capitalism and socialism, employee medical benefits, health care costs, health care industry, health care reform

When your boss talks to you, do you learn something? Or do you learn nothing and suspect that your boss is either trying to hide something from you or is just ignorant? 

If you’ve never had a boss who teaches, and you don’t know what that would look like, listen to a speech by President Obama. Every time he talks to us, we learn something. He’s not trying to keep us in the dark, he’s trying to help us understand the impact of our actions. Do you appreciate knowing? Take this desire to the workplace. 

This is what a good boss does. If you’re not learning useful things from your boss, ask yourself how many years you’re willing to stagnate. Now go on job interviews, even if you’re not looking for a new job -- go just to find out what other bosses are like, to gauge how well-off you really are in your current job. Interview potential bosses--as they interview you. Listen for the ones who teach. Do you learn something? Do you like it? 

When you see the difference, you may change your life.

Want to learn how to be a good boss? Just watch President Barack Obama. 

Pay particular attention to his focus on transparency. To his openness to new ideas--from any source. To his enforcement of ethics.  

His methods could fix an ailing America. Or an ailing soul.