When you become a boss you become someone responsible for the performance of a group. In that instant, you become the designated confronter. Some people will behave poorly. Some will underperform. Someone needs to confront them about it and you’re it. Others may choose to, but it’s your job. You probably » Read More
Tag: Management
Selecting New Bosses: Three things you shouldn’t guess about
One of the biggest crapshoots in many a company is selecting individual contributors for positions where they’re responsible for the performance of a group. There are lots of ways to get it wrong. Some companies give people a boss’s job if they’re stellar performers in an individual contributor’s » Read More
Bosses: People work is the real work
My boss rocked back in his chair, tapping his lip with a forefinger. “What exactly do you think my ‘real work’ is?” he asked. We had been talking about an issue with a man who worked for me. The discussion had been going on for a while and I had just apologized for keeping him from his “real » Read More
Learning to be a great boss
Today, Jeff Immelt is the CEO of General Electric, but once he was a boy whose father worked on the line at a GE plant. In 2005, Fast Company asked Immelt if his dad behaved differently at home when he had a bad boss. Here’s Immelt’s answer. “Yeah. He came home in a bad mood, uncertain about the future » Read More
Leadership: Everyone else is taken
Dennis and Bill were part of the first group of great bosses that I studied. Both were rated as excellent by their bosses, their peers and their subordinates. Other than that, they didn’t have much in common. One was tall and square-jawed handsome, the other was short and unexceptional in appearance. One was » Read More