You want to talk to me Go ahead and talk Whatever you got to say to me Won’t come as any shock
Bob Dylan
The difference between bossing and leading is massive. Yes, of course, most leaders are bosses on some level, but very few bosses are leaders. By that I mean too many bosses do too little to bolster their leadership skills and many in fact assume they are leaders simply because they are bosses. If you make that assumption, I can guarantee you are no leader no matter what your title. Boss is a position. Leader is an attitude of greatness, whatever the position, which is why untitled (and unentitled) employees can be great leaders without being bosses.
Leaders intuitively understand the difference between bossing and leading even if they do not put it in those terms. They know that there are times when bossing may be necessary but that leading is always called for.
Bosses and leaders even have different ways of talking. Here are some things I have heard dopey bosses say.
Pro Tip: If you want to talk like a leader, just flip these statements around.
Things Dopey Bosses Say
“My people keep preventing me from implementing my great ideas. Why? They’re great ideas!”
Now, it could be that your people are a bunch of malcontents, but that would not be the case if you were any kind of leader. More than likely, though, the truth is that your ideas weren’t such great ideas after all.
I know of a brand new boss who complains widely and loudly how his people constantly block his ideas. The problem is that his best ideas had long ago been implemented, well before he got on the scene, which he would have known if he had bothered to listen or do his homework. The bulk of his ideas, though, are insipid.
“Our leadership team is really smart, so we don’t need to get some other brains on this to help us out.”
Just as no individual can know it all, no leadership team has all the answers. There is nothing wrong with bringing in expertise or just fresh thinking whether from inside or outside the organization. Indeed, trusting your people to participate in decision-making is one of the most powerful tools you can use. It is a sign of a healthy organization. This is how leaders think.
“This is an at-will state,” and “other duties as assigned.”
When these appear in a job description or are stated as de facto policy, written or otherwise, you have just stripped your people of autonomy and dignity. First, the facts. All fifty states have some degree of at-will employment, but only Montana (freaking Montana!) limits that status to the first six months of employment, which is in line with, ya know, civilized nations. When Montana is the progressive groundbreaker, you know something is wildly amiss.
At-will employment policies send the message that bosses are monarchs and employees are disposable serfs. By the way, if you are in the habit of disposing of people at will, you have no chance of ever becoming a leader unless you change your ways — to be more like Montana.
As for “other duties as assigned,” while you may legally be able to get away with this, doing so is fundamentally dishonest. If you don’t know how to write an accurate job description, find someone who can. If an employee’s duties must change down the line, that is something to negotiate in good faith, not impose. Only dopey bosses treat their people like ranch horses.
“I have to check or even do everything because everyone else is incompetent.”
Do we really have to rehearse this one? If you think or say this, then I know for sure who is incompetent in that scenario. Either you don’t know how to hire and train people, or you’re just full of yourself. Or both. Frankly, you ain’t all that (and everyone knows it even if you don’t). This stupidity is the hallmark of a dopey boss.
“When I hire, I try to trip up the candidates over and over in order to weed them out.”
The attitude that the job candidate is in the hot seat and you are supposed to get them to slip up is both archaic and counterproductive. If, instead, you treat the job application process as an uplifting and mutually beneficial interaction, you are accomplishing two things at once. First, you are sending a message about the positive culture you are cultivating and setting the successful candidate on the right path. Second, you are leaving every candidate, no matter the results, with good feelings about you and your organization, which will reflect well on you down the line. You say you don’t care about either result? Well, shame on you, boss!
“I don’t want my workers to worry/panic/complain, so I keep information from them if I think it will bother them.”
It’s hard to believe that this one is even a thing, but I know it is. Here is a rule of thumb: maximize transparency and omnidirectional communication. Unless you oversee a bunch of teenaged workers in a fast-food franchise at the mall, your people are adult professionals. Treat them as such. No one likes secrets, and no one likes to be patronized.
And, yes, there are items that for legal and other reasons must be kept secret, but in a culture of openness, everyone can easily understand and accept that fact. If you think this one is too hard, I can assure you that the alternative is far harder. Leaders relate through communication.
“My people are lucky to be working at all. They couldn’t get hired anywhere else.”
I worked at a college where the president literally thought like this and even sometimes said it aloud. He was a jerk and a very bad boss.
“No one works harder than I do, and I expect my people to work just as hard.”
I have gone on and on and on about the BS virtue of hard work. Instead of working harder, try working better and striving to work best. Simply working harder is always counterproductive, and expecting others to work harder is even worse, particularly if they are not compensated for their time. Bosses don’t understand any of this.
"I expect exemplary behavior from my people, but since I am the boss, I do as I want."
If you are the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do type, just stop it! That attitude goes by another name: hypocrisy. In contrast, great leaders strive to be great all the time and inspire greatness in their people by modeling the best behaviors themselves.
“We can all aspire to greatness, and we can always be greater still.”
Whoops! That one snuck in. This statement reflects the triumphal mindset of true leaders. If you want to lead, start here.
You probably heard echoes of bosses past in some of these statements. Maybe you have even heard your own voice.
The boss mindset is ego-based. It involves short-term thinking and lacks fundamental human decency. The leader mindset is broad minded and values based, imbuing every act with a conscious commitment to integrity. It’s a challenge, and all the more so since the leader mindset requires constant vigilance. Bosses pump and preen their egos. On the other hand, leaders regularly stuff their egos in a sack and throw them in the river.
Bosses fail and fail again, wasting much of their time and their people’s time compensating for their ineffectiveness. Sadly our culture rewards bossing behaviors, such as displays of power and mindless cruelty, which distorts things so that even those failures look like successes. Leaders, being human, will fail as well, but they learn from their failures and those of others and tend to be most efficient in the long run. Again, sadly, our culture often denigrates leadership behaviors, such as openness, but the rewards are well worth it.
Bosses are rarely leaders, but leaders are truly boss.
When you speak, do you sound like a boss or a leader? How do you know?
Great leadership is a mindset you must cultivate and constantly revisit, and I can help.
If you want to learn more about how to become a great leader in this world of bad bosses, visit GuidanceForGreatness.com.
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