A Continuum of Badness


Making distinctions about “badness” helps us deal with it in its many forms. Rather than have a uniform reaction to every bad boss or peer, we can identify the degree of badness an individual possesses and thus create an appropriate strategy that will maximize the learning and minimize the trauma associated with this individual. The following “continuum of badness” will facilitate this process:

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On the far left side of this continuum are people who annoy and irritate us. One may be a disorganized, noncommunicative, or distracted boss; another may be a temperamental, overly talkative coworker who exhibits behaviors that you occasionally find annoying. In most cases, these people have positive qualities as well, but their one negative behavior stands out for you and causes you to perceive them as bad. In reality, it’s one behavior that you perceive as bad.

To the right of Annoying is Flawed. This is not just a particular behavior or attitude that’s problematic but an ingrained aspect of their personality that colors their management and work style. This may be arrogance, perfectionism, volatility, or any number of off-putting qualities, but these traits are part of their persona and make them difficult to deal with at times. You consider them bad because you’re intimidated by a volatile boss or find it unpleasant to work with a melodramatic coworker. We’ve written a lot about leadership derailers in other books, and we coach leaders to understand their derailment factors, which are career derailers for these individuals; good leaders learn how to work effectively with people who have these derailers—and know how to manage the derailers in themselves.

Value-Averse individuals are bad, not just because of a behavioral or personality factor but because they hold values that are in significant conflict with yours or those of the culture in which you both work. A Value-Averse boss, for instance, will constantly focus on “task over people” (or the opposite), ignore the importance of family or outside support, seek to undermine the boss, humiliate direct reports in public, act rudely to coworkers, or ignore the practices and beliefs the company stands for. Working for someone like this is challenging for many reasons, not the least of which is that you feel devalued as a person because something that is important to you is being undermined by someone in authority. Although you might trust someone who is Annoying and retain some trust in a Flawed individual, it is difficult to trust a person who is Value-Averse.

The Unethical boss or peer is bad to the extreme. This is someone who may cavalierly violate established ethical principles, laws, and regulations, or may lie, cheat, and manipulate as if he were above the laws that govern human behavior. Working for or with people like this is hell. Not only can’t you talk to them about their behaviors but you feel guilty collaborating with them on a project or supporting their success in any way.

The farther to the right bosses or peers are on the continuum, the more difficult they are to work with. Nonetheless, each type has a leadership lesson to offer those willing to learn.

Besides the continuum, you should also consider the consistency factor. It’s much easier to work for and with individuals whose behavior is predictable. If, for instance, your boss is irritating in the same way all the time, he’s not as difficult as someone who irritates you in unpredictably different ways.

One leader we observed—we’ll call him Tim—was a terrific boss in many respects, but he had wild mood swings. You’d go out to dinner with him one night and he would be charming, open, and friendly, but the next day he’d be cold and distant. There was no logic to his mood swings, at least none that his direct reports could discern, so it was very difficult to predict him and, ultimately, trust him. His direct reports felt that no matter how hard they worked or how great their contributions, Tim didn’t respond appropriately. In fact, they might even fail to deliver or perform poorly, and Tim would sometimes respond with understanding, even kindness. Other times, when he was under stress but their results were good, he would be furious. To help people gauge Tim’s changing moods, his secretary used to surreptitiously signal thumbs-up or thumbs-down so direct reports knew whether it was a good time to talk to him or avoid him. Tim’s team learned to manage Tim—establishing control mechanisms and adaptive solutions so they could get work done, which is not uncommon in companies with multiple personalities and styles.

Bad bosses and peers can take on many guises, and they’re not always the expected ones. For instance, the stereotypical bad boss is controlling, aggressive, domineering, or even bullying. But in reality, most bosses aren’t bad in this sense, especially in large, professional, knowledge-based organizations where overt bullying behavior is generally not tolerated. Just because your boss isn’t a bully, however, doesn’t mean he’s not bad in some other sense of the term. Consider the following three examples of leaders we have encountered.

Mark: A Risk-Averse CEO

Mark is an ineffective CEO of a medium-size public company, a man so exacting and deliberate that he lived and breathed financial reports and data and was generally uninterested in strategy, people, and organization. Although he was good at establishing metrics and measuring progress, his lack of interest in people gradually created an environment in which people were unmotivated, and over a two-year period, some of the high-performers left the company because of his unwillingness to take risks, focus on careers, or address the requirements of the future. His erosive leadership was only evident over time, and eventually he was simply unable to deliver on the financials he measured so precisely.

Marcia: An Erratic Boss

Marcia was a bad boss in a very different way from Mark. Marcia was a charismatic GM who initially attracted the best and the brightest to her team and then alienated them with her mischievous ways. Marcia was creative, extroverted, energetic, and playful, but she viewed established rules and procedures as “suggestions”—that were open to violation when circumstances required. She delighted in being disingenuous, circumventing rules, changing established goals and objectives, and holding meetings that included or excluded key people, depending on how she perceived a situation. She didn’t mind if people were kept anticipating her next move, and her direct reports were frustrated and even angry at times, although they enjoyed Marcia’s company and appreciated her creativity.

Robert: A Vindictive Boss

Robert was a good boss who became a bad boss because of a specific situation. A long-tenured CFO in his early sixties, Robert found himself being subtly marginalized and pushed aside by a newly hired CEO who didn’t want to engender an age-discrimination suit from Robert. Instead, he brazenly recruited a CFO heir apparent and asked Robert to “show him the ropes.” Robert became angry and resentful. Furious at his organization, feeling betrayed because of his long service, foiling his hopes to engineer his retirement at his own pace, Robert unconsciously chose to undermine his successor by giving him trivial tasks, withholding information, and preventing him from participating in key financial reviews. Though Robert was outwardly polite to his new direct report, he was privately vindictive, and his resentment leached into his overall leadership of his function.

Bad Peers

Peers, too, are bad in different ways. The stereotype of a competitive peer who will do anything to get your job or scheme to make you look bad in the eyes of the organization is more the stuff of melodramatic fiction, sitcom television, or movies than the reality of professional companies and firms today. Bad peers are typically bad because a boss has orchestrated a situation where competition between two or more people for resources, assignments, or promotions is fierce. Peers can be bad in confusing ways—one day they may be supportive and the next become competitive and withholding. Today’s allies may suddenly turn into future competitors because of shifting organizational structures, priorities, or roles.

The point of all this is to consider bad bosses and peers in relative terms and consider them situationally. Don’t jump to conclusions and assume someone is bad because his personality irritates you or you’re angry at one particular action. It’s possible that your boss is evil incarnate and that you should quit immediately, but this is rarely the case (although we coach many senior leaders who hold exactly this viewpoint). By keeping an open mind about how bad your boss or peer really is and in what particular way, you give yourself a greater chance to learn critical leadership lessons in this passage.




Leadership Passages. The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader
Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)
ISBN: 0787974277
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 121

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